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Note: From its Atiantic 
end at Colon, the Canal 
runs for 10 miles due 
sunth; then its general 
course is to the eastward 
into the Pacilic. This is 
quite contrary to the 
popular conception of its 
general direction and is 
due to the fact that tlie 
Isthmus, at the Canal, 
bends to the eastward, so 
that the Pacific Ocean at 
this point is south and east 
of the Atlantic, as shown 
bv the small inf;ert map at 
the lower left liand corner 
of the main map above. 



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10 11 ■", 13 !1 




PANAMA 

And the Canal 



IN PICTURE AND PROSE 

A complete story of Panama, as well as the history, purpcJse 

and promise of its world-famous canal— the most 

gigantic engineering undertaking since 

the dawn of time 

Approved by leading officials connected with the great enterprise 

By WILLIS J. ABBOT 

Author of The Story of Our Navy, American Merchant Ships and Sailors, Etc. 



Water-colors by 

E. J. READ and GORDON GRANT 



Profusely illustrated by over 600 unique and attractive photographs taken 
expressly for this book by our special staff 



Published in English and Spanish by 

SYNDICATE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO 



HAVANA BUENOS AIRES 

1913 



Copynght 1913, by F. E. Wright 



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\5 

CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION ; 5 

CHAPTER I. THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA g 

Antilla, a New Sugar Port — The Island of Jamaica — Kingston, The Colonial Capital — ^Women as Burden Bearers — 
Characteristics of the Native Jamaican — ^Life of the Negro Woman. 

CHAPTER II. CRISTOBAL-COLON; AND THE PANAMA RAILROAD 23 

The Approach to Colon — The Architecture and Population of Colon — Railroad Building in a Swamp — The French Come 
to Colon — ^The Beautiful Roosevelt Avenue — Colon Streets in the Early Days — The Varied Population of Colon — San 
Bias Indians and Their Cayucas — The Ghastly Story of the Chinese — Cost and Charges of the Panama Railroad. 

CHAPTER III. NOMBRE DE DIOS, PORTO BELLO AND SAN LORENZO 45 

The Harbor of Porto Bello — The First Appearance of Balboa — Early Indian Life in Panama — The Futile Indian Up- 
rising — The First Sight of the Pacific — The Beginning of Balboa's Downfall — ^The Traitor in Balboa's Camp — The 
Character of Vasco Nunez de Balboa — Panama a Link in Philippine Trade — Flush Times in Porto Bello — The Pirati- 
cal Raid of Sir Francis Drake — The Futile Attack on the Treasure Train — The Appearance of Morgan the Buccaneer 
—The Pillage of Porto Bello. 

CHAPTER IV. SAN LORENZO AND PANAMA 75 

The Waterway to San Lorenzo — Approach to San Lorenzo Castle — A Rip Van Winkle of a Fortress — The Assault of 
the Buccaneers — The End of Porto Bello and San Lorenzo. 

CHAPTER V. THE SACK OF OLD PANAMA 87 

The Advance of the Buccaneers — The Banquet before Panama — The Buccaneers Triumphant in Battle — The Pirates' 
Orgy of Plunder — How Morgan Plundered His Pirates — The Scene of Morgan's Great Exploit. 

CHAPTER VI. REVOLUTIONS AND THE FRENCH REGIME _. 101 

The Scottish Settlement in Panama — Disasters Beset the Scotch Colonists — The Repeated Revolutions of Panama — 
Early Projectors of a Panama Canal — Sea Level or Lock Canal — ^A Relic of the French Days — Some of the Finished 
Work of the French — The Financial Aberrations of De Lesseps — Yellow Fever's Toll of French Lives — -The Value of 
the French Work. 

CHAPTER VIL THE UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 123 

Why Panama Wanted Independence — Our Share in the Revolution — A Revolution Without a Single Battle — Treaty 
Rights of the United States — Illustrations of the Magnitude of the Canal Work — The Passage of the Canal Locks 
— Spectacular Features of Gatun Lake — The Abandonment of Canal Towns — The Pacific Terminus of the Canal — The 
Forts at the Pacific Entrance. 

CHAPTER VIII. THE FORMATIVE PERIOD . 147 

The Beginning of Work under Wallace — The Absentee Commissioners and the Red Tape — The Successful War with 
Yellow Fever — The Change from Wallace to Stevens — The Varying Estimates of the Canal Cost — The Resignation 
of Engineer Stevens. 

CHAPTER IX. COL. GOETHALS AT THE THROTTLE 161 

What the Colonel Meant by Orders — The Colonel's Sunday Morning Court — The Autocratic Power of Col. Goethals 
— The Panama Work Shows Governmental Efficiency. 

CHAPTER X. GAtUN DAM AND LOCKS i7« 

Atlantic Beginning of the Canal — The Plan of the Gatun Dam — How the Chagres Current was Blocked — -The Spill- 
way, The Nerve Center of Gatun Lake — The Uses of the Electric Power of Gatun — The Colossal Concrete Work at 
Gatun — The Motive Power of the Lock Gates. 

CHAPTER XI. GATUN LAKE AND THE CHAGRES RIVER 187 

The Native Affection for the Chagres — The Indispensable Native Cayuca — Keeping the Record of the Chagres — ■ 
Cruces in Its Day of Greatness — Animal Life on the- Chagres River — A Typical Foreign Laborer on The Zone. 

CHAPTER XII. THE CULEBRA CUT 201 

The Great Problem of the Slides— The Physical Characteristics of the Slide— Some Peculiar Features of the Shdes — 
The Explosive Experience of Miguel — The Gorgeous Coloring of Culebra— The Perilous Passage of Culebra Cut — The 
almost Human Work of the Steam Shovel— The Work of the Steam Shovellers— The almost Indispensable Track 
Shifter — The Industrious Ants of Panama — The End of the Canal at Balboa. 

■CHAPTER XIII. THE CITY OF PANAMA 224 

The First Appearance of Panama City — The Popular Panama Lottery — Panama's Cost of Living is High — Scenes in 
the Panama Market — The Prevalent Temper of the Panamanians— Why Americans are not Popular — American Sen- 
timent on the Isthmus — The Public Buildings of Panama — The Stout Walls of Panama City— Scenes of the Mardi 
Gras Carnival — Cock-Fighting and the Liquor Trade — In the Ancient Chiriqui Prison — The Many Churches of Panama 
— Panama Clubs and Open Air Life. 



2 CONTENTS (Continued) 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XIV. THE SANITATION OF THE ZONE 253 

Beginning the Warfare on Mosquitoes — Methods of the Anti-Mosquito Crusade — Some Hufflors of the Mosquito War — 
How the Streams are SteriUzed — Results of the War on Mosquitoes — The Two Great Canal Commission Hospitals — 
The System of Free Medical Treatment — The Pleasant Village of Taboga — The Sanitarium and Leper Colony. 

CHAPTER XV. THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 273 

The Doubtful Soil of Panama — The Simple Study of Native Life — The Buildmg of the Bridegroom's House — Labor and 
Land Titles in Panama — Agriculture and Temperature in Panama — Rubber and Cocoanuts Offer Possibilities — The Sport 
of Shooting Alligators — A Colossal Agricultural Enterprise — The Banana as an Empire Builder — Why the American Flag 
is Rare — Getting the Bananas to Market — David and the Cattle Country — Gold from the Indian Tombs — Efforts for a 
System of Industrial Education. 

CHAPTER XVI. THE INDIANS OF PANAMA 305 

Marriage Customs of the Indians — The Many Tribes of Panama Indians — Characteristics of the San Bias Tribe — An 
Exclusive Aboriginal People — Family Quarters of the San Bias — ^Customs of the Chocos and Guaymies — Peculiarities 
of the Darien Indians. 

CHAPTER XVII. SOCIAL LIFE ON THE CANAL ZONE ' ! ,320. 

The Population of the Canal Zone — The Temptations to Matrimony on the Zone — The Gold and Silver Employees — 
The Object Lesson of the Canal Zone — Why It is not at all "Socialistic" — In a Typical Canal Zone Dwelling — Some 
Features of Zone Housekeeping — Prices of Food at the Commissary — The Complicated Social Life of the Zone — 
Church Work and the Y. M. C. A. 

CHAPTER XVIII. LABOR AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ZONE •.••■.•.• ;..'.. . 341 

The Colossal Business of the Commissary — The Task of Feeding Forty Nationalities — The Stern Suppression of the 
Social Class — Evil Effect of the Abolition of the Canteen — Some Figures Concerning the Commissary Service — The 
International Agreement on the Commissary — The Police System of the Zone — The School System of the Zone — 
Agricultural Possibilities on the Zone — Future Possibilities of the Canal Zone. 

CHAPTER XIX. FORTIFICATIONS, TOLLS, COMMERCE AND QUARANTINE 363 

Why Fortify the Canal at All? — The Suez Canal no Parallel — Some Details of the Fortifications — The Mobile Force 
on the Zone — The Sufficiency of Fortifications Planned — Effect of the Canal on Trade Routes — The Railroad Fight on 
the Canal — The Canal and the Flag — The First Immediate Advantage of the Canal — The Much-mooted Question of 
Tolls — Our Trade with Pacific-Latin America — Time Saved by Panama Canal Route — The Possible Commerce of the 
Canal — Some Phases of Our Foreign Trade — The Need of Our Own Ships and Banks — What Our Merchant Marine is 
— The Grave Question of Quarantine. 

CHAPTER XX. DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS OF THE CANAL 399 

Our Reckoning with Colombia — Our Commercial Interests in South America — Mutual Interests of the United States and 
Great Britain — What the Canal has and will Cost — New Work for the Interstate Commerce Commission — The Moral 
Lesson of the Panama Canal. 



LIST OF COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS 



40 



Map of Panama Canal and Canal Zone Facing title page 

F.ACING P.\GE F-\CIXG P.\GE 

16 The Culebra Cut 216 

Avenida B, Panama City 232 

Panama Bay from Ancon Hospital 256 

A Typical Native Hut 280 

Vendor of Fruit and Pottery 304 

Old Landing at Taboga 336 

Swimming Pool at Panama 35& 

Santa Ana Plaza, Panama 392 



Duke Street, Kingston, Jamaica ; 

Going to Market 

A Native Village '. 72 

Old French Canal at Mount Hope 104 

Ancon Hill from the Harbor of Panama 128 

The Washing Place at Taboga 152 

A Native Bakery 176 

The River and Village of Chagres ' 192 



LIST OF BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Sentinel Tree 5 

Scene on Otoque Island, Panama Bay 6 

The Rank. Lush Growth of the Jungle 7 

Ruins of Old Panama S 

Tree Growing out of a Chimney in Jamaica . . 9 

Cane River Falls 10 

The Road to Market 11 

Sports on Shipboard 12 

The "Oruba" 12 

Bog Walk, Jamaica 13 

Government Buildings, Kingston 14 

King Street, Kingston, Jamaica 15 

Jamaica, Where Motoring is Good 16 

Women on the Way to Market 17 

A Yard and its Tenants 18 

Coaling Steamships 19 

Market Women and their Donkeys 20 

One Way of Carrying Bananas 21 

"Gwine to de Big Job" 22 

Toro Point Light 23 

Toro Point Brealwater 24 

The New Cristobal Docks 24 

"Pahns Which Blend With the Sea" 25 

. Colon in 1884 26 

Fire-Fighting Force at Cristobal 27 

The New Washington Hotel 28 

The Only Stone Church in Colon 28 

Nature of Country near Colon 29 

Panama Pottery Sellers 30 

Hindoo Laborers on the Canal 30 

San Bias Boats at Early Dawn 31 

San Bias Indian Boys 31 

San Bias Lugger Putting Out to Sea 31 

The Atlantic Fleet Visits the Isthmus 32 

Roosevelt Avenue, Cristobal, About to Lose its 

Beauty 33 

The De Lesseps Palace 34 

The National Game — Cock-Fighting 34 

How the Jungle Works 35 

"Bottle Alley" 36 

D Street, Colon. Paved * 37 

Bachelor Quarters at Toro Point 3S 

A Colon Water Carrier 39 

An Open Sewer in a Colon Street 39 

By a Cocl^ Brook 40 

The Mangoes Marching on Stilt-like Roots. . . 40 

A Picturesque Inlet of the Caribbean 41 

Childish Beauty Without Art 42 

A Comer of Mount Hope Cemetery 42 

The Soulful Eyes of the Tropics 43 

Market Day at David 43 

Scene on Almirante Bay 44 

Modem Porto Bello from Across the Bay 45 

Typical Native Hut in Porto Bello District... 46 
Entrance to Porto Bello Harbor, from Spanish 

Fort 47 

Bullock Cart on the Savanna Road 47 

Modern Indian. Darien Region 48 

Native Family in Chorrera 49 

Seventeenth Century Ruin at Porto Bello so 

Street in Modern Porto Bello 51 

Ancient Trail from Porto Bello 52 

Spanish Fort at Entrance to Porto Bello Harbor 53 

A Group of Cholo Indians 54 

Natives Grinding Rice in a Mortar Owned by All . 55 

' Family Travel on the Panama Trail 56 

Deserted Native Hut 57 

What They Still Call a Road in Panama 58 

Outdoor Life of the Natives 59 

Native Hut and Open-Air Kitchen 60 

Cocoanut Grove on the Caribbean Coast 61 

Canal Commission Stone Crusher, • Porto Bello 6r 

Native Huts near Porto Bello 62 

An Indian Family of the Darien 62 

Ruined Spanish Fort at Porto Bello 63 

■ San Bias Luggers at Anchor .* 64 

The Teeth of the Tropics 64 

Native Bridge in the Darien 65 

Choco Indian Girls 66 

Indian Huts near Porto Bello 67 

Country Back of Porto Bello 68 

Native Women of the Savannas Bearing Burdens 68 

Camina Reale. or Royal Road near Porto Bello 69 

A Lady of the Savanna 70 

Native Children, Panama Province 70 

Bull-Rider and Native Car at Bouquet te, Chiriqui 71 

The Indians Call Her a Witch 72 

A Cuna Cuna Familv near Porto Bello 72 

A Trail near Porto Bello 73 

A Cholo Mother and Daughter 73 

A Group of Cuepa Trees 74 

Mouth of the Chagres River 75 

Mouth of the Chai^res' from the Fort 76 

The Sally-Port at San Lorenzo 77 

Church at Chagres 78 

Old Spanish Magazine 70 

Spanish Ruins. Porto Bello 79 

Our Guide at San Lorenzo 80 

The Author at San Lorenzo 8a 

Looking Up the Chagres from San Lorenzo... 81 

The True Native Social Center 82 

Tropical Foliage on the Caribbean 83 



P.\GE 

On the Upper Chagres 84 

Native Panama Woman 84 

A Character of Colon 85 

Woman of the Chagres Region 85 

Near a Convent at Old Panama 87 

Casa Reale or King's House 88 

The Ruined Tower of San Augustine 89 

Wayside Shrine on the Savanna Road 90 

Arched Bridge at Old Panama. Almost 400 

Years Old 91 

Foliage on the Canal Zone 92 

The Chagres Above San Lorenzo 93 

In the Crypt of Old San Augustine 94 

A Woman of Old Panama . . . 94 

Wash Day at Taboga 95 

A Street in Cruces . 96 

Breaking Waves at Old Panama 96 

Old Bell at Remedios. 1682 97 

The Beetling Cliffs of the Upper Chagres 97 

The Roots Reach Down Seeking for Soil 98 

Bluff near Toro Point 99 

"Wliether the Tree or the Wall is Stouter is a 

Problem" 100 

San Pablo Lock in French Days loi 

Part of the Sea Wall at Panama 102 

The Pelicans in the Bay of Panama 103 

The Road from Panama to La Boca 104. 

The City Park of Colon 105 

Children in a Native Hut 105 

The Water Front of Panama 106 

The Water Gate of Panama 106 

Entrance to Mount Hope Cemetery 107 

Cathedral Plaza. Panama loS 

Avenida Centrale 109 

Ancon Hill at Sunset no 

Abandoned French Machinery on the Canal. . no 

Overwhelmed by the Jungle in 

A Lottery Ticket Seller 112 

Machinery Seemingly as Hopeless as this was 

Recovered, Cleaned and set to Work 112 

The Power of the Jungle 113 

La Folie Dingier 1 14 

Near the Pacific Entrance to the Canal 1 14 

Where the French Did Their Best Work 115 

An Old Spanish Church 116 

Juncture of French and American Canals 116 

Part of the Toll of Life 117 

The Ancon Hospital Grounds 118 

A Sunken Railroad 118 

A Zone Working Village 119 

Negro Quarters. French Town of Empire 120 

Filth that would Drive a Berkshire from his Sty. 121 

Canal Valley near Pedro Miguel 122 

Panama Soldiers Going to Church 123 

The Official Umpire. Code 124 

The Man and the Machine 125 

Landing Pigs for Market 126 

The Trail near Culebra 126 

In the Banana Country, on the Coast near 

Bocas del Toro 127 

The Best Residence Section, Colon 12S 

The Old Fire Cistern, Panama 129 

The Two Presidents: Roosevelt and Amador. . 130 

Cholo Chief and His Third Wife 131 

Native House and Group at Puerta Pinas. ... 131 

What They Call a Street in Taboga 132 

Hindoo Merchants on the Zone. 132 

Cham^ Beach. Pacific Coast 133 

French Dry Dock, Cristobal 133 

What the Work Expended on the Canal Might 

Have Done 134 

A Graphic Comparison 134 

What the Panama Concrete Would Do. 135 

Proportions of Some of the Canal Work 135 

The "Spoil " from Culebra Cut Would Do This 135 

In a Typical Lock 135 

Lock at Pedro Miguel Under Construction.... 137 

Range Tower at Pacific Entrance 138 

Bird's Eye View of Pedro Miguel Locks 13S 

The Vegetable Martyrs 139 

Native Street at Taboga 140 

Gamboa Bridge with Chagres at Flood 141 

The Y. M. C. A. Club House at Gatun 141 

Working in Culebra Cut 142 

Miraflores Lock in March, 1913 113 

Naos. Perico and Flamenco Islands to be Forti- 
fied 143 

Beginning of New Balboa Docks 144. 

The Old Pacific Mail Docks at Balboa 144 

The Pacific Gateway 145 

Completed Canal at Corozal 146 

Tunnel for the Obispo Diversion Canal 147 

The Two Colonels 148 

A Walk at Ancon 140 

In the Hospital Grounds 140 

French Cottages on the Water Front. Cristobal 150 

Pay Day for the Black Labor 151 

In Wallace's Time 152 

The Fumigation Brigade 153 

Tyoical Screened Houses 154 

A Street After Paving 15 + 

Stockade for Petty Canal Zone 0-Tenders 155 



I'ACIi 

Hospital Buildings, United Fruit Co 155 

Beginning the New Docks, Cristobal 156 

A Back Street in Colon ' 157 

Steam Shovel at Work 158 

The Balboa Road j eg 

A Drill Barge at Work '.'.'.'.'.'.'. 159 

Pacific Entrance to the Canal [ 160 

Col. Goethals at His Desk [ ,,[ lOi 

Railway Station at Gatun j^^ 

President Taft Arrives 1O2 

Col. Goethals Reviewing the Marines at Camp 

Elliott ■. , . . i(J3 

President Taft and "the Colonel" .' * 164 

Big Guns for Canal Defence 164 

Col. Goethals Encourages the National Game. 165 

Old French Ladder Dredges Still Used 166 

The Colonel's Daily Stroll 165 

A Side Drill Crew at Work 167 

The Colonel's Fireworks lOS 

A Heavy Blast Under Water 168 

The Colonel's Daily Meal 169 

"The Goethals' Own" in Action ■. . 169 

Bas Obispo End of Culebra Cut 170 

Entrance to Gatun Locks 171 

I. Colon: These Pictures in Order form a 
Panorama of the Colon Water Front 172 

III. Colon: Panama Railroad and Royal Mail 
Docks 172 

II. Colon: Part of the Residential District on 

the Water Front 173 

IV. Colon: The De Lesseps House in the 
Distance shows Location of New Docks. . . . 173 

South Approach Wall. Gatun Locks 174 

Gatun Locks Opening into the Lake 174 

Gatun Lake Seen frOm the Dam. 175 

Bird's Eye View of Gatun Dam ^75 

Construction Work on Gatun Dam 176 

Piunping Mud into the Core of Gatun Dam.. 176 

Gatun Upper Lock 177 

Gatun Center Light 177 

Emergency Gates ....-- 177 

Spillway tjnder Construction 17$ 

Partly Completed Spillway. 1913 179 

The Giant Penstocks of the Spillway t^o 

The Spillway at High Water 180 

Lock Gates Approaching Completion 181 

The Water Knocking at Gatun Gates 182 

Wall of Gatun Lock" Showing Arched Construc- 
tion 182 

TraveUng Cranes at Work 183 

Building a Monolith 183 

A Culvert in the Lock Wall 184 

Diagram of Lock-Gate Machinery 184 

Towing Locomotive Climbing to Upper Lock.. 184 
The Heavy Wheel Shown is the "Bull Wheel" 185 
The Tangled Maze of Steel Skeletons that are 

a Lock in the Making 186 

The Chagres, Showing Observer's Car 187 

Fluviograph at Bohio, now Submerged iSS 

Automatic Fluviograph on Gatun Lake. ...... 1S8 

The Village of Bohio, now Submerged 1S9 

Steps Leading to Fluviograph Station at Alha- 

juela 190 

A Light House in the Jungle 190 

The Riverside Market at Matachin 191 

Railroad Bridge Over the Chagres at Gamboa 192 

A Quiet Beach on the Chagres 192 

Poling Up the Rapids 193 

Construction Work on the Spillway 193 

Water Gates in Lock Wall 194 

The Lake Above Gatun 194 

How They Gather at the River 195 

Washerwomen's Shelters by the River 196 

A Ferry on the Upper Chagres 196 

The Much Prized Iguana 197 

Cruces — A Little Town with a Long History. . 19S 

A Native Charcoal Burner 19S 

The Natives" Afternoon Tea 199 

Piers of the Abandoned Panama Railway 200 

Working on Three Levels 201 

The Original Culebra Slide 202 

Slide on West Bank of the Canal near Culebra 203 

Attacking the Cucaracha Slide 204 

Diagram of Culebra Cut Slides 205 

A Rock Slide near Empire 205 

The Author at Culebra Cut 206 

Cutting at Base of Contractors Hill 206 

A Rock Slide at Las Cascades 207 

Slicing Off the Chief Engineer's Office 20S 

How Tourists see the Cut 20S 

Jamaicans Operating a Compressed Air Drill.. 209 

Handling Rock in Ancon Quarry 209 

In the Cucaracha Slide 210 

Brow of Gold Hill, Culebra Cut 211 

A Dirt-Snreader at Work 212 

"Every Bite Recorded at Headquarters'* 212 

A Lidgerwood Unloader at Work 213 

The Track Shifter in .\ction 213 

One of the Colonel's Troubles 214 

The Sliced-ofT Hill at Ancon 214 

A Lock-Chamber from Above 215 

When the Obispo Broke in 215 



LIST OF BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS (Continued) 



PAGE 

Ungainly Monsters of Steel Working with 

Human Skill 216 

Building an Upper Tier of Locks 217 

Traveling Cranes that Bear the Brunt of 

Burden Carrying 217 

The Floor of a Lock 218 

Excavating with a Monitor as Califomians Dig 

Gold 21S 

A Steam Shovel in Operation 219 

Bird's Eye View of the Miraflores Locks 220 

The Rock-Break that Admitted the Bas Obispo 220 

An Ant's Nest on the Savanna 221 

A Termite Ant's Nest ■ 221 

Deep Sea Dredge at Balboa 222 

Proportions of the Locks 222 

The Great Fill at Balboa Where the Culebra 

Spoil is Dumped 223 

Panama Bay from Ancon Hill 224 

Santa Ana Plaza 225 

Panama from the Sea Wall; Cathedral Towers 

in Distance 226 

The Bull Ring; Bull Fights are now Prohibited 227 

The Panama Water Front 227 

The Lottery Office in the Bishop's Palace. . . . 228 

San Domingo Church and the Fiat Arch 228 

Chiriqui Cattle at the Abattoir 229 

The President's House; A Fine Type of Panama 

Residence 229 

The Fish Market 230 

San Bias Boats at the Market Place * 230 

The Vegetable Market 230 

The Market on the Curb 231 

Where the Flies get Busy 231 

Cayucas on Market Day 231 

Panama from the Bay; Ancon HiU in the Back- 
ground 232 

Pottery Vendors near the Panama City Market 233 

From a Panama Balcony 234 

The First Communion 23S 

Marriage is an Affair of Some Pomp 235 

The Manly Art in the Tropics 236 

A Group of National Pohce 236 

Taboga, the Pleasure Place of Panama 237 

Santa Ana Church. 1764 237 

The Panama National Institute 23S 

The Municipal Building 239 

The National Palace and Theater 23O 

Salient Angle of Landward Wall - 240 

Bovs Skating on Sea Wall 240 

Vaults in the Panama Cemetery 241 

Ruins of San Domingo Church 242 

Some Carnival Floats ; . . . . 243 

The Ancient Cathedral 244 

The Police Station, Panama 24s 

Church of Our Lady of Mercy (La Merced) . . 24S 

Young Ajnerica on Panama Beach 246 

Ready to Control the Pacific 246 

The Flowery Chiriqui Prison 247 

The Market for Shell Fish 248 

The Cathedral and Plaza 249 

In a Panama Park 250 

Salvation Army in Panama 250 

Costume de Rigueur for February 250 

Bust of Lieut. Napoleon B. Wyse 251 

On Panama's Bathing Beach 252 

Quarantine Station at Pacific Entrance to Canal 252 

Col. W. C. Gorgas 253 

What Col. Gorgas Had to Correct 254 

Administration Building, Housing the Sanitary 

Department 254 

Dredging a Colon Street 255 

The War on Mosquitoes. 1 256 

The War on Mosquitoes. II 256 

The War on Mosquitoes. Ill 257 

The War on Mosquitoes. IV 257 

Sanitary Work in a Village 258 

The Mosquito Chloroformer's Outfit 259 

The Mosquito Chloroformer at Work 259 

Ancon Hospital as Received from the French. . 260 
The Canal Commission Hospital at Colon Built 

by the French 261 

French Village of Empire after Cleaning up by 

Americans 262 

The Bay of Taboga from the Sanitarium 262 

The Little Pango Boats Come to Meet You . . 263 

Old Church at Taboga 263 

The Rio Grande Reservoir 263 

In Picturesque Taboga 264 

In the Grounds of Ancon Hospital 265 

The Sanitarium at Taboga Inherited from the 

French 266 

A Fete Day at Taboga 266 

Feather Palm at Ancon 267 

Taboga from the Bathing Beach 267 

Taboga is Furthermore the Coney Island of 

Panama. 26S 

Burden Bearers on the Savanna 269 

Hotel at Bouquette. Chiriqui 270 

A Bit of Ancon Hospital Grounds 270 

The Chief Industry of the Natives is Fishing.. 271 

Nurses' Quarters at Ancon 271 

The Leper Settlement on Panama Bay 272 

The Gorge of Salamanca 273 

Native Family in Chorrera 274 

A Street in Penemone 275 

The Hotel at David 27s 

View of Bocas del Toro 276 

Vista on the Rio Grande 276 

At the Cattle Port of Aguadulce 277 

COPYRIG 



PAGE 

The Royal Road near Panama 277 

The Meeting Place of the Cayucas 278 

Banana Market at Matachin 279 

In the Chiriqui Country 280 

Banana Plant; Note Size of Man 280 

Construction of Roof of a Native House 281 

A Native Living Room and Stairway 281 

Rubber Plantation near Code 2S2 

Bolivar Park at Bocas del Toro 282 

A Ford near Ancon 283 

Old Banana Trees 284 

Pineapples in the Field 284 

Country House of a Cacao Planter at Choria. 285 

Waiting for the Boat 285 

Started for Market 286 

Loading Cattle at Aguadulce 286 

Dolega in the Chiriqui Province 287 

Mahogany Trees with Orchids 287 

Bayano Cedar, Eight Feet Diameter 28S 

The Cacao Tree 288 

Street in David 288 

In the Banana Country 289 

Market Place at Ancon 290 

Fruit Company Steamer at Wharf 291 

United Fruit Company Train 291 

Sanitary Office, Bocas del Toro 291 

A Pile of Reiected Bananas 292 

A Perfect Bunch of Bananas 292 

The Astor Yacht at Cristobal 293 

The Bay of Bocas 293 

Bringing Home the Crocodile 294 

A Morning's Shooting 294 

On Crocodile Creek 295 

The End of the Crocodile 29s 

Above the Clouds, Chiriqui Volcano 296 

The Chiriqui Volcano 296 

Native Market Boat at Chorrera 297 

In Bouquette Valley, the Most Fertile Part of 

Chiriqui 297 

Coffee Plant at Bouquette 298 

Drying the Coffee Beans 298 

Drying Cloths for Coffee , 299 

Breadfruit Tree 299 

Primitive Sugar Mill 300 

Chiriqui Natives in an Ox-Cart 300 

Proclaiming a Law at David 301 

The Cattle Range near David 301 

Despoiling Old Guaymi Graves 302 

A Day's Shooting, Game Mostly Monkeys. . . . 302 

The Government School of Hat Making...... 303 

Beginning a Panama Hat 303 

Coffee Plantation at Bouquette 304 

Work of Indian Students in the National 

Institute 304 

The Crater of the Chiriqui Volcano 304 

Trapping an Aborigine 30.^ 

Native Village on Panama Bay 306 

A River Landing Place 306 

The Falls at Chorrera 307 

On the Rio Grande 307 

Old Spanish Church. Chorrera 30S 

The Church at Ancon 308 

The Pearl Island Village of Taboga 309 

Native Village at Capera 309 

A Choco Indian in Full Costume 310 

Some San Bias Girls 311 

Chief Don Carlos of the Chocoes and His Son 312 
The Village of Playon Grand, Eighty-five Miles 

East of the Canal 312 

San Bias Woman in Daily Garb 313 

A Girl of the Choco Tribe 313 

Daughter of Chief Don Carlos 313 

Native Bridge over the Caldera River 314 

Guaymi Indian Man 315 

Indian Girl of the Darien 316 

Choco Indian of Sambu Valley 317 

Panamanian Father and Child 318 

Choco Indian in Every-day Dress 319 

A Squad of Canal Zone Police Officers 320 

A Primitive Sugar Mill. 321 

Vine-clad Family Quarters > 321 

Quarters of a Bachelor Teacher 321 

Main Street at Gorgona 322 

In the Lobby of a Y. M. C. A. Club 323 

Street Scene in Culebra 324 

Young America at Play 324 

Hindoo Merchants at a Zone Town 325 

The Native Mills Grind Slowly 325 

Commission Road near Empire . 326 

The Fire Force of Cristobal 327 

Orchids on Gov. Thatcher's Porch 328 

The Catasetum Scurra 329 

Married Quarters at Corozal 330 

Fighting the Industrious Ant 330 

Foliage on the Zone 331 

The Chief Commissary at Cristobal 332 

What the Slide Did to the Railroad 333 

Not from Jamaica but the Y. M. C. A 334 

A Bachelor's Quarters 334 

The Tivoli Hotel 335 

The Grapefruit of Panama 335 

Pure Panama. Pure Indian and all Between. . . 336 

Interior of Gatun Y. M. C. A. Club. 337 

Y. M. C. A. Club at Gatun 337 

Marine Post at Camp Elliott 338 

Tourists in the Culebra Cut 33S 

Lobby in Tivoli Hotel 339 

Altar in Gatun Catholic Church 340 

La Boca from the City 341 

HT, 1914, BY F. E. Wright, "Panama and The 



PAGa 

At Los Angosturas 342 

The Water Front at Colon 342 

Negro Quarters at Cristobal 343 

Labor Train at Ancon 34.4 

Negro Sleeping Quarters 344 

A Workmen's Sleeping Car 345 

A Workmen's Dining Car 345 

Old French Bucket Dredges 346 

Old French Bridge at Bas Obispo 346 

The Relaxation of Pay Day 347 

Bas Obispo as the French Left it 347 

Convicts Building a Commission Road 348 

Construction Work Showing Concrete Carriers 

and Moulds 349 

How the Natives Gather Cocoanuts 350 

Looking Down Miraflores Locks 350 

Entrance to Bouquette Valley 350 

Hospital at Bocas 351 

New American Docks at Cristobal 351 

Ox Method of Transportation 352 

Road Making by Convicts 352 

Cocoanut Palms near Ancon 353 

Native Religious Procession at Chorrera 354 

Opening the Cocoanut 354 

Rice Stacked for Drying 355 

Bullock Cart in Chorrera 355 

Sun Setting in the Atlantic at Lighthouse Point 356 

The Fruitful Mango Tree 357 

Completed Canal near Gatun 358 . 

Traveling Cranes at Miraflores 358 

The Review at One of the Roosevelt Receptions 359 

Pacific Flats Left by Receding Tide 359 

A Whaler at Pearl Island 360 

An Old Well at Chiriqui 360 

A Good Yield of Cocoanuts 361 

Cholo Girls at the Stream 361 

Shipping at Balboa Docks 362 

Explaining it to the Boss 363 

Spanish Monastery at Panama 364 

Choco Indian of Sanbu Valley 364 

The Rising Generation 365 

Ancon Hill, Where Americans Live in Comfort 365 

Gatun Lake, Showing Small Floating Islands. . 366 

A Spectacular Blast 367 

The First View of Colon 367 

A Porch at Culebra 368 

Avenida Centrale, Panama, near the Station.. 368 

In a Chiriqui Town 369 

A Mountain River in Chiriqui 369 

Biting Through a Slide: Five Cubic Yards per 

Bite 370 

Commissary Building and Front Street, Colon 371 

Pedro Miguel Locks 372 

Detail Construction of a Lock 373 

A Group of Guaymi Girls 374 

A Zone Sign of Civilization 374 

Part of the Completed Canal 375 

His Morning Tub 37S 

Native Girl, Chorrera Province 376 

Native Boy, Chorrera Province 376 

Park at David 377 

Main Street, Chorrera 377 

A Placid Back Water in Chiriqui 378 

Gatun Lake. Floating Islands Massed Against 

Trestle 379 

Guide Wall at Miraflores 380 

Poling Over the Shallows 381 

The Spillway Almost Complete 381 

San Bias Lugger in Port 382 

The Beginning of a Slide 382 

" Making the Dirt Fly" 383 

The Happy Children of the Zone 383 

Map of the Panama Cutoff 385 

An Eruption of the Canal Bed 386 

Culebra Cut on a Hazy Day 3S8 

Bird's-Eye View of Miraflores Lock 3S9 

HandUng Broken Rock 390 

Lock Construction Showing Conduits 390 

Traveling Crane Handling Concrete in Lock- 
Building 391 

Tivoli Hotel from Hospital Grounds 392 

Mestizo Girl of Chorrera 392 

How Corn is Ground 393 

They Used to do This in New England 393 

Pile-Driver and Dredge at Balboa Dock 394 

Giant Cement Carriers at Work 395 

Tracks Ascending from Lower to Upper Lock. 396 . 

Col. Goethals' House at Culebra 397 

Electric Towing Locomotives on a Lock 398 

A Church in Chorrera 399 

A Native Kitchen 400 

Native House in Penomene 400 

Giant Cacti Often Used for Hedging 401 

A Street in Chorrera 401 

The Town of Empire, Soon to be Abandoned . . 402 

The Panama Railroad Bridge at Gamboa. . . . ." 403 

A Street in Chorrera 404 , 

A Pearl Island Village 404 ' 

One Step Upward from a Palm-Thatched Hut 405 ] 

Bird's-Eye View of the Panama Canal 405 

Native Woman, Code 406 

River Village in Chiriqui 406 

The Pearl Island Village of Saboga 406 

The Brook at Taboga 408 

One of the Smaller Slides 408 

Giant Steam Mixers 409 

Machinery Wrecked by a Slide 410 

The Great Falls of Chorrera 411 

A Twentieth Century Liner Locking 412 

Canal." 



L 



INTRODUCTION 



0^ 



m 



PANAMA. They say the word means "a place 
of many fishes," but there is some dissension 
about the exact derivation of the name of the 
now severed Isthmus. Indeed dissension, quar- 
rels, wars and massacres have been the prime char- 
acteristics of Panama for four hundred years. "A 
place of many battles" would be a more fitting 
significance for the name of this tiny 
spot where man has been do 
ing ceaseless battle with 
man since history rose 
to record the conflicts. 
As deadly as the 
wars between men 
of hostile races, 
has been the 
unceasing 
struggle be- 
tween man 
and nature. 

You will 
get some faint 

idea of the toU of life taken 
in this conflict if from 
Cristobal you will drive 

out to the picturesque cemetery at Mount 
Hope and look upon the almost interminable 
vista of little white headstones. Each marks 
the last resting place of some poor fellow fallen 
in the war with fever, malaria and all of tropic 
nature's fierce and fatal allies against all con- 
quering man. That war is never ended. The 
English and the Spaniards have laid down their 
arms. Cimmaroon and conquistadore, pirate 
and buccaneer no longer steal stealthily, along 
the narrow jungle trails. But let man forget 
for a while his vigilance and the rank, lush 
growth of the 
jungle creeps 
over his clear- 
ings, his roads, 
his machinery, 
enveloping a 1 1 
in morphic arms 






Photobv H. Pilllcr. 



of vivid green, dehcate and beautiful to look 
upon, but tough, stubborn and fiercely resistant 
when attacked. Poisoned spines guard the slender 
tendrils that cling so tenaciously to every vantage 
point. Insects innumerable are sheltered by the 
vegetable chevaux-de-frise and in turn protect it 
from the assaults of any human enemy. 
Given a few months to reestablish it- 
self and the jungle, once subdued, 
presents to man again a de- 
fiant and an almost 
impenetrable front. 
We boast that we 
have conquered 
nature on the 
Isthmus, but 
we have merely 
won a truce 
along a com- 
paratively nar- 
row strip be- 
tween the 
oceans. Eternal 
vigilance will be 
the price of safety 
even there. 
If that country 
alone is happy whose history is uninteresting, 
then sorrow must have been the ordained lot 
of Panama. Visited first by Columbus in 1502, 
at which time the great navigator put forth 
every effort to find a strait leading through to 
the East Indies, it has figured largely in the 
pages of history ever since. Considerable 
cities of Spanish foundation rose there while 
our own Jamestown and Plymouth were still 
unimagined. The Spaniards were building 

massive walls, 
erecting mason- 
ry churches, and 
paving royal 
roads down there 
in the jungle 
long before the 



r* 



^^^ 




CouTlesy American (.Jcographic Magazine. Washington 
THE SENTINEL TREE 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



palisades and log huts of Plymouth rose on the 
sandy shores of Cape Cod Bay. If the ruins of 
the first city of Panama, draped with tropical 
vines, are all that remain of that once royal city, 
its successor founded in 1673 still stands with 
parts of the original walls sturdily resisting the 
onslaught of time. 

It appears there are certain advantages about 
geographical littleness. If Panama had been big 
the eyes of the world would never have been fastened 
upon it. Instinctively Columbus sought in each of 
its bays, opening from the Caribbean that strait 
which should lead to far Cathay. Seeking the same 
mythical passage Balboa there climbed a hill where 

" — with eagle eyes, 
He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men 
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise 
Silent upon a peak in Darien." 

Hope of a natural strait a,bandoned, the narrow- 
ness of the Isthmus made i%the shortest route for 



gold fever filled the narrow Isthmus full of graves, 
and of moldering bodies for which there was not 
even hasty sepulture. In time the Peruvian hoards 
were exhausted, Spaniards and Englishmen, bucca- 
neers and pirates vanished. Then came a new in- 
vasion — this time by a nation unknown in the days 
of the Great Trade and the Royal Road. Gold had 
been discovered in California, and now troops of 
Americans fought their way through the jungle, and 
breasted the rapids of the Chagres River. They 
sought gold as had Pizarro and Cortez, but they 
sought it with spade and pan, not with sword and 
musket. In their wake came the Panama Railroad, 
a true pioneer of international trade. Then sprung 
up once more the demand for the waterway across 
the neck which Columbus had sought in vain. 

The story of the inception and completion of the 
canal is the truly great chapter in the history of 
Panama. Not all the gold from poor Peru that 
Pizarro sent across the Isthmus to fatten the coffers 
of kings or to awaken the cupidity and cunning of 



Cortez, Pizarro and other flmous Spanish robbers the buccaneers equals what the United States alone 



and murderers to follow in their quest for the gold 
of the Incas. As the Spaniards spoiled Peru, so the 
buccaneers and other pirates, belonging to foreign 
nations, robbed and murdered the Spaniards. The 




SCENE ON OTOQUE ISLAND, PANAMA BAY 



has expended to give to the trade of the world the 
highway so long and so fruitlessly sought. An act 
of unselfish bounty, freely given to all the peoples 
cf the earth, comes to obliterate at last the long 

record of interna- 
tional perfidy, pi- 
racy and plunder 
which is the history 
of Panama. 

This book is be- 
ing written in the 
last days of con- 
structive work on 
the Panama Canal. 
The tens of thou- 
sands of workmen, 
the hundreds of 
officers are prepar- 
ing to scatter to 
their homes in all 
parts of the world. 
The pleasant and 
hospitable society 
of the Zone of which 
I have written is 
breaking up. Vil- 



INTRODUCTION 




THE RANK, LUSH GROWTH OF THE JUNGLE 



lages are being abandoned, and the water of 
Gatun Lake is silently creeping up and the green 
advance guard of the jungle swiftly stealing over 
the forsaken ground. While this book is yet new 
much that I have written of as part of the pro- 
gram of the future will indeed have become part 
of the record of the past. 

■ 1 think that anyone who visited the Canal Zone 
during the latter years of construction work will 
have carried away with him a very pleasant and 
lively recollection of a social life and hospitality 
that was quite ideal. The ofRcial centers at Culebra 
and An con, the quarters of the army at Camp Otis 
and the navy and marine corps at Camp Elliott were 
ever ready to entertain the visitor from the states 
and his enjoyment was necessarily tinged with 
regret that the charming homes thrown open to him 
were but ephemeral, and that the passage of the 



first ship through the canal would mark the begin- 
ning of their dismantling and abandonment. The 
practiced traveler in every clime will find this 
eagerness of those who hold national outposts, 
whether ours in the Philippines, or the British in 
India and Hong Kong, to extend the glad hand of wel- 
come to one from home, but nowhere have I found 
it so thoroughly the custom as on the Canal Zone. 
No American need fear loneliness who goes there. 

In the chapter on "Social Life on the Canal Zone " 
I have tried to depict this colonial existence, so 
different from the life of the same people when in 
"the states" and 3'et so full of a certain "homi- 
ness" after all. It does not seem to me that we 
Americans cling to our home customs when on 
foreign stations quite so tenaciously as do the 
British — though I observed that the Americans on 
the Zone played baseball quite as religiously as the 



8 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



British played cricket. Perhaps we are less tena- 
cious of afternoon tea than they, but women's clubs 
flourish on the Zone as they do in Kansas, while as 
for bridge it proceeds as uninterruptedly as the 
flow of the dirt out of the Culebra Cut. 

Nobody could return from the Zone without a 
desire to express thanks for the hospitalities shown 
him and the author is fortunate in possessing the 
opportunity to do so publicly. Particularly do I 
wish to acknowledge indebtedness or aid in the 
preparation of this book to Col. George W. 
Goethals, Chairman and Engineer in Chief, and 
to Col. W. C. Gorgas, Commissioner and Chief Sani- 
tary Officer. It goes without saying that without 
the friendly aid and cooperation of Col. Goethals 
no adequate description of the canal work and the 
life of the workers could ever be written. To the 
then Secretary of War, Hon. Henry L. Stimson, 
under whose able administration of the Department 
of War much of the canal progress noted in this 
book was made, the author is indebted for personal 
and official introductions, and to Hon. John Bar- 
rett, one time United States Minister to Colombia 
and now Director General of the Pan American 
Union, much is owed for advice and suggestion from 
a mind richly stored with Latin-American facts. 

On the Canal Zone Hon. Joseph B. Bishop, Secre- 
tary of the Isthmian Canal Commission, Hon. 
Maurice H. Thatcher, Civil Governor, and Mr. H. 
H. Rousseau, the naval member of the Commission, 
were particularly helpful. Thanks are cordially 
extended to Prof. F. A. Cause, the superintendent of 
schools, who has built up on the Canal Zone an educa- 
tional system that cannot fail to affect favorably the 



schools of the surrounding Republic of Panama; to 
Mr. Walter J. Beyer, the engineer in charge of light- 
house construction, and to Mr. A. B. Dickson who, 
by his active and devoted work in the development 
of the Y. M. C. A. clubs on the Zone, has created a 
feature of its social life which is absolutely indispen- 
sable. ' 

The illustration of a book of this nature would 
be far from complete were the work of professional 
photographers alone relied upon. Of the army of 
amateurs who have kindly contributed to its pages ; 
I wish to thank Prof. H. Pittier of the Department' 
of Agriculture, Prof. Otto Lutz, Department of 
Natural Science, Panama National Institute; Mr.' 
W. Ryall Burtis, of Freehold, N. J.; Mr. Stewarti 
Hancock Elliott, of Norwalk, Conn.; Mr. A. WJ 
French, and Dr. A. J. Orenstein of the Department! 
of Sanitation. • 

The opening of the Panama Canal does not merely 
portend a new era in trade, or the end of the epoch' 
of trial and struggle on the Isthmus. It has a! 
finality such as have few of the great works of man. 
Nowhere on this globe are there left two continents 
to be severed; two oceans to be united. Canals are' 
yet to be dug, arms of the sea brought together.' 
We may yet see inland channels from Boston toi 
Galveston, and from Chicago to New York nav- 
igable by large steamships. But the union of the 
Mediterranean and the Red Sea at Suez, and the 
Atlantic and Pacific at Panama stand as man's 
crowning achievements in remodeling God's world. 
As Ambassador James Bryce, speaking of the Pana- 
ma Canal, put it, "It is the greatest liberty Man 
has ever taken with Nature." 




RUINS OF OLD PANAMA 




CHAPTER I 

THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA 



HE gray sun of a bitter Feb- 
ruary day was sinking in 
a swirling sea as the ship 
doggedly plowed its way 
southward along the New Jer- 
sey coast. One after another 
the beacons that guard that 
perilous strip of sand twinkled 
out, and one after another voy- 
agers unused to ocean's stormiest moods silently 
disappeared into secretive cabins. "It may be a 
stem and rockbound coast," said one lady with 
poetic reminiscence, "but I wish I was on it!" 
For it must be set down as a melancholy truth that 
the voyage from New York to Colon is as a rule 
tempestuous. 

Most who seek the Canal Zone as mere sight- 
seers will choose winter for the trip, at which time 
wintry gales are the rule as far south as the Bahamas 
— after which the long smooth rollers of the trop- 
ical ocean will sufficiently try the unaccustomed 
stomach even though the breezes which accompany 
them be as mild as those of Araby the blest. In 
brief, to reach in winter our newest possession you 
must brave the ordinary discomforts of a rough voy- 
age, and three days of biting cold weather as well, un- 
less you sail from New Orleans, or the terminus of 
Mr. Flagler's new over-sea railroad at Key West. 

Despite its isthmian character, the Canal Zone, 
Uncle Sam's most southerly outpost, may be called 
an island, for the travelers' purpose. True it is bor- 
dered on but two sides by water, and thus far vio- 
lates the definition of an island. But it is only to 
be reached by water. The other two sides are walled 
in by the tangled jungle where vegetation grows so 
rank and lush that animal life is stunted and beaten 
in the struggle for existence by the towering palms, 
clustering ferns and creeping vines. Only things 
that crawl on their bellies like the serpent accursed 
in Eden grow to their fullest estate in this network 
of rustling green. Lions there are, by the talk of 
the natives at least, but when you encounter them 



they turn out to be mere stunted specimens of ovu* 
northern wild cat. The deer, rarely met, are dwarfed 
but are the largest animals to be found in the jungle, 
though one hears reports of giant boas. Indeed the 
remnants of the age of reptiles are large to our eyes, 
though puny in comparison with the giants that 
scientists christened, long centuries after they were 
extinct and unable to protest, with such names as 
ichthyosaurus. You will still find lizards or iguana, 
three to five feet long, if your search of the jungle 
be thorough. The tapir, or ant eater, too, grows to 
huge size. But it is not dread of wild animals that 
keeps man from penetrating the jungle. The swift 
growing and impenetrable vegetation blocks the paths 

as fast as cut, and he 
who would seek the 
Canal Zone must fol- 
low the oldest of high- 
ways, the sea. 

If New York be 
the port of departure, 
several lines offer 
themselves to the 
traveler, and soon 




TREE GROWING OUT OF A CHIMNEY IN JAMAICA 



10 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



after the canal is opened their number will be in- 
creased. At present the Panama Railroad Company, 
owned by the government, maintains a line of ships 
mainly for the carriage of supplies and employes of 
the Canal Commission. There is already discussion 
of the wisdom of abandoning this line after the con- 
struction work is over, on the ground that the 
United States government has no right to enter into 
the business of water transportation in competition 







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CANE RIVER FALLS 

with private parties. If sold by the government, 
however, the line will doubtless be maintained under 
private ownership. The United Fruit Company, an 
American corporation with an impressive fleet of 
ships all flying the British flag, also carries passengers 
to the Isthmus from New York and New Orleans, 
as does the Hamburg-American Line, from New 
York only. My own voyage was by the Royal Mail 
Steam Packet line, an historic organization chartered 
in 1839 for the express purpose of bringing England 
into closer touch with its West Indian colonies. 
The excellent ships of this line, sailing fortnightly 
from New York, touch at the little port of Antilla 



on the northern shore of Cuba, spend twenty-four 
hours at Jamaica and reach Colon on the eighth day 
of the voyage. Thence the ship plows along through 
our American Mediterranean, touching at Trinidad, 
St. Kitts, Barbadoes and other British colonial out- 
posts until at last she turns into the open ocean, 
buffeting her way eastward to Gibraltar and South- 
ampton, her home port. 

A real bit of England afloat is the "Oruba" with 
officers clad on festive occasions in full dress uni- 
forms closely resembling those of the Royal Navy, 
and stewards who never dropped dishes in a storm 
but dropped their h's on the slightest provocation. 
" 'E's in the 'old, mum," explained one when a lady 
inquired for the whereabouts of a .missing dog. It 
is wonderful after all how persistent are the British 
manners and customs in the places the English 
frequent. From the breakfast tea, bloaters and 
marmalade, to the fish knives sensibly served with 
that course at dinner, but which finicky Americans 
abjure, all about the table on these ships is typically 
English. In the colonies you find drivers all turning 
to the left, things are done "directly" and not 
"right away," every villa has its tennis court, and 
Piccadilly, Bond St., and Regent Street are never 
missing from the smallest colonial towns. 

But to return to the voyage. For four days we 
steamed south along a course as straight as though 
drawn by a ruler. For three days the wind blew 
bitter and cutting, the seas buffeted the weather 
side of the ship with resounding blows, and the big 
dining saloon displayed a beggarly array of empty 
seats. Betwixt us and Africa was nothing but a 
clear course for wind and wave, and both seemed 
to suffer from speed mania. Strange noises rose 
from the cabins; stewardesses looked business-like 
and all-compelling as they glided along the narrow 
corridors. Flardened men in the smoke room kept 
their spirits up by pouring spirits down, and agreed 
that the first leg of a voyage to Colon was always a 
beastly one. 

But by the morning of the fourth day a change 
comes over the spirit of our dreams. The wind 
still blows, but it is soft, tempered to the shorn 
lamb. The ship still rolls, but the mysterious organ 
called the stomach has become attuned to the mo- 
tion and ladies begin to reappear on the deck. The 
deck chairs so blithely rented at New York are no 



ANTILLA, A NEW SUGAR PORT 



II 



longer untenanted, and we cease to look upon the 
deck steward who took our money as a confidence 
man. A glance at the chart at noon shows us off 
the northern coast of Florida and the deep blue of 
the water betokens the Gulf Stream. Next morning 
men begin to don their white suits, and the sailors 



vessel plainly visible — for this is believed to be the 
first land sighted by Columbus. Of that there is 
some debate, but there is always debate on ship- 
board and any event that will furnish a topic is 
welcome. Everything about the ship now has 
turned tropical. The shady deck becomes popular, 



wander about barefooted. A bright girl suggests and the 240 pound ship's doctor in immaculate 




THE ROAD TO MARKET 
A typical highway of Jamaica, followed by natives going to Kingston 



that a voyage from New York to the tropics is like 
a shower bath taken backwards, and we all are glad 
that the warm water faucet is at last turned on. 

The first land we sight after the Jersey coast 
has faded away is Watling Island, in the Baha- 
mas. Everybody looks at it eagerly — a long, 
low-lying coast with a slender lighthouse, a 
fishing village and the wreck of a square rigged 



white linen with the cutest little shell jacket after 
the Royal Navy pattern becomes a subject for 
wonder and admiration. 

Antilla, the first stopping place on the way south, 
is a cluster of houses on a spacious bay on the 
northern side of Cuba, connected with Santiago and 
Havana. Doubtless some day it may become a 
notable shipping point, and indeed the shores of the 



12 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



bay are dotted with great sugar houses and carpeted 

with fields of shimmering green cane. But today 

only a lighter load of timber and a few tropical 

products are shipped — 

that is if we except a 

bunch of tourists who 

have come this far on 

the way to Colon by 

rail and the short sea 

trip from Florida to 

Cuba. Most of them 

were in doubt whether 

they had improved upon 

the discomfort of four 

rough days at sea by 




mended by people who don't get sick, now pines 
for exercise and entertainment. Young men nor- 
mally sane, bestride an horizontal boom and belabor 

each other with pillows 
until one or both fall 
to the hospitable mat- 
tress below. Other 
youths, greatly en- 
couraged by the plau- 
dits of fair ones, permit 
themselves to be trussed 
up like fowls exposed for 
sale, and, with ungainly 
hops and lurches, bunt 
into each other until one 



SPORTS ON 

electing twenty-four 
hours of rough riding on 
the Cuban railway in- 
stead. 

Past the quarantine 
station which, with its 
red-topped hospital, 
looks like a seashore 
resort, we steam, and 
the boat's prow is again 
turned southward. Ja- 
maica, our next port of 
call, is thirty-six hours away, and at last we have 
placid blue water from which the flying fish break 
in little clouds, and a breeze suggestive of the isles 
of spice. The ship's company which two days back 
was largely content with cots, and the innumerable 
worthless remedies for seasickness, always recom- 




THE GRUB A 



SHIPBOARD 

is toppled to the deck. 
The human cockfight 
brings loud applause 
which attains its apogee 
when some spectator at 
the critical moment with 
a shrill cock-a-doodle- 
doo displays an egg. A 
ship in the tropics is the 
truest of playgrounds. 
We are beginning to 
feel the content of just 
living which characterizes the native of the tropics. 
Indeed when the deck is cleared and waxed, and 
the weather cloths and colored lights brought forth 
for the ball, most of the men who left New York 
full of energy find themselves too languid to 
participate. I don't know whether the Royal Mail 



THE ISLAND DP JAMAICA 



13 



exacts of its officers an aptitude for the dance, but 
their trim white uniforms were always much in evi- 
dence when the two-step was in progress. 

Early on the second day out from Cuba a heavy 
gray mass showed clear on the horizon to the south- 
west. It is reported by the historians that when 
Queen Isabella once asked Columbus what Jamaica 



to the water. In early morn the crests of the hills 
are draped with clouds, and from the valleys be- 
twixt them masses of white mist come rolling out 
as the rays of the sun heat the atmosphere. For 
forty miles or so you steam along this coast with 
scarce an acre of level land between the mountains 
and the deep until in the distance you descry the 




BOG WALK, JAMAICA 
There are no bogs along this beautiful drive. The name was originally " Boeas del Agua," and has been corrupted to its present form 



looked like he crumpled up a sheet of stiff paper in 
his palm, then partly smoothing it displayed it to 
the Queen. The illustration was apt. Nowhere does 
a more crinkly island rise from the sea. Up to a 
height of 7000 feet and more the mountains rise 
sheer from the sea with only here and there the 
narrowest strip of white beach at the base. For the 
most part the tropical foliage comes unthinned down 



hollow in which Kingston lies embedded. A low lying 
sand bar runs parallel to the shore and perhaps a 
mile out, forming the barrier for the harbor which is 
indeed a noble bay well fit to shelter navies. But 
the barrier, though but a few feet above high water 
now, is sinking gradually, and the future of King- 
ston's harbor is somewhat distressing. Once this 
low sandbar bore the most riotous and wicked town 



H 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



of history, for here stood Port Royal to which 
flocked the pirates and buccaneers of the Spanish 
Main, with their booty — doubloons, pieces of eight, 
beauteous Spanish senoritas and all the other at- 
tractive plunder with which the dime novels of our 
youth made us familiar. A right merry spot was 
Port Royal in those days and a pistol bullet or a 



wildest of the reckless lot, a baronet, and appointed 
him governor of Jamaica. Now Port Royal has 
shrunken to a ashing village, bordering upon the 
abandoned British naval station at the very har- 
bor's mouth. 

One sees there the emplacements for guns, but no 
guns; the barracks for marines, but no men. Even 




GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, KINGSTuN 
The special type of reenforced concrete buildings with hroad arcades is well adapted to the tropics 



swift stab in the back, though common enough, 
only halted the merriment for one man at a time. 
But fire purged Port Royal, and the pleasant pursuit 
of piracy began to fall into disrepute. Instead of 
treating the gallants who sailed under the Jolly 
Roger as gentlemen adventurers, civilized govern- 
ments began to hang them — England being the last 
to countenance them in making Henry Morgan, 



the flagstaff rises dismally destitute of bunting. No 
sign of military or naval life appears about the 
harbor. The flrst time I visited it a small British 
gunboat about the size of our "Dolphin" dropped 
anchor and sent four boatloads of jackies ashore 
for a frolic, but on my second visit the new Gover- 
nor of the colony arrived on a Royal Mail ship, 
unescorted by any armed vessel, and v/as received 



KINGSTON, THE COLONIAL CAPITAL 



15 



without .military pomp or the thunder of 
cannon. 

The fact of the matter is that the ties uniting 
Jamaica to the mother country are of the very 
slenderest, and it is said that not a few Jamaicans 
would welcome a change in allegiance to the United 
States. The greatest product of the island is sugar. 



Thus far, however, Jamaica has refused this half a 
loaf, wishing the preferential Hmited to her products 

alone. 

Meanwhile English writers of authority are openly 
discussing the likelihood of Jamaica reverting to 
the United States. In its South American supple- 
ment the London Times said in 191 1, speaking of 




KING STREET, KINGSTON, JAMAICA 



Our tariff policy denies it entrance to our market, 
though as I write Congress is debating a lower tariff.' 
The British pohcy of a "free breakfast table" gives 
it no advantage in the English markets over the 
bounty-fed sugar of Germany. Hence the island 
is today in a state of commercial depression almost 
mortuary. An appeal to Canada resulted in that 
country giving in its tariff a 20 per cent advantage 
to the sugar and fruit of the British West Indies. 



the United States: "Its supremacy in the Gulf of 
Mexico and in the Caribbean Sea is todaj^ prac- 
tically undisputed; there can be little doubt, there- 
fore, that the islands of the West Indies and the 
outlying units of Spanish America will, upon the 
completion of the Panama Canal, gravitate in due 
course to amalgamation with the Great Republic 
of the North." And Mr. Archibald Colquhoun, an 
authoritative writer on British West Indian policy, 



l6 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



said about the same time : " It is certain that Jamaica, 
and other West Indian Islands, in view of the local 
geographical and economic conditions — and espe- 
cially in view of the change which will be wrought 
in those conditions by the opening of the Panama 
Canal — must sooner or later decide between Canada 
and the United States." 

This situation may lead the Imperial Govern- 
ment to throw Jamaica a sop in the shape of heavy 
expenditures f.or fortifications, a large resident gar- 
rison and a permanent naval station. But it is 
unlikely. If Kingston is within easy striking dis- 
tance of the Canal, it is within easier striking distance 
■of our powerful naval base at Guantanamo. The 
monopoly of striking is not conferred on any one 
power, and the advantage of striking first would be 
open to either. 

Not impressive as viewed from the water, the 



town is even less so when considered in the intimacy 
of its streets. An air of gray melancholy pervades it 
all. In 1907 an earthquake rent the town into frag- 
ments, and the work of rebuilding is but begun. 
Ruins confront you on every hand, the ruins of edi- 
fices that in their prime could have been nothing 
but commonplace, and in this day of their disaster 
have none of the dignity which we like to discover 
in mute memorials of a vanished past. Over all 
broods a dull, drab mantle of dust. The glorious 
trees, unexcelled in variety and vigor, have their 
richly varying hues dulled by the dust, so that you 
may not know how superb indeed is the coloring 
of leaf and flower except after one of the short sharp 
tropical rains that washes away the pall and sets 
the gutters roaring with a chocolate colored flood. 
Making due allowance for the tropical vegetation 
and the multitudinous negro, there is much that is 




JAMAICA, WHERE MOTORING IS GOOD 



WOMEN AS BURDEN BEARERS 



17 




WOMEN ON THE WAY TO MARKET 
' The woman or the donkey furnishes transportation ' 



characteristically English about Kingston. The 
houses of the better class of people, however fragile 
in construction, stand somewhat back from the 
street, guarded by ponderous brick walls in order 
that the theory "every Englishman's house is his 
castle" may be literally maintained. , And each 
house has its name painted conspicuously on its gate 
posts. The names are emphatically English and 
their grandeur bears no apparent relation to the 
size of the edifice. Sometimes they reach into lit- 
erature. I saw one six -room cottage labeled "Bir- 
namwood," but looked in vain about the neighbor- 
hood for Dunsinane. 

The town boasts a race course, and the triple pil- 
lars of English social life, cricket, lawn tennis and 
afternoon tea, are much in evidence. The Governor 
is always an Englishman and his home government. 



which never does things by halves, furnishes him 
with a stately official residence and a salary of 
£5000 a year. The Episcopal Archbishop of the 
West Indies resident there is an Englishman. But 
most of the heads of official departments are Ja- 
maicans, which is quite as it should be, for out of 
the 850,000 people in the island only about 1660, 
according to the census of 191 1, were bom in Eng- 
land, Scotland or Ireland. Furthermore the number 
of "men from home" is relatively decreasing, al- 
though their influence is still potent. Even the na- 
tive Jamaican of the more cultivated class speaks 
of England as home, and as a rule he spends his 
holidays there. Yet the keenest observers declare 
that the individual Englishman in Jamaica always 
remains much of a stranger to the native people. 
He is not as adaptable even as the American, and 



I8 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



it is asserted that American influence in the island 
grows even as British domination is weakened. 

One home feature which the EngUsh have im- 
pressed upon the islands is good roads. The high- 
ways leading from Kingston up into the hills and 
across the island to Port Antonio and other places 
are models of road making. They are of the highest 
economic value, too, for in marketing farm products 
the one railroad is but little used. Nearly every- 
thing is brought from farm to market on the heads 
of the striding women, or in straw panniers slung 
over the backs of patient donkeys. Amazing are the 
loads these two patient beasts of burden — biped and 
quadruped — bear. Once in a while a yoke of oxen, 
or a one horse cart is seen, but in the main the 
woman or the donkey furnishes transportation. To 
the Jamaican there is nothing wrong with the 



verbiage of the Tenth Commandment to which our 
progressive women take violent exception. To him 
there is nothing anomalous in lumping in his or his 
neighbor's wife witn "his ox or his ass." So the 
country roads on a market day are an unending 
panorama of human life, of women plodding to 
market — often a two days' journey — with a long 
swinging stride, burden firmly poised on head, or 
returning with smaller loads gossiping and laughing 
with much gleaming of white teeth as the stranger 
passes. The roads are a paradise for automobilists — 
smooth, of gentle grade, with easy curves and wind- 
ing through the most beautiful scenery of tropic 
hillsides and rushing waters. Only the all-pervading 
dust mars the motorists' pleasure. 

If the air is dusty, the prevailing complexion is 
dusky. For in this island of about 850,000 people 




A YARD AND ITS TENANTS 
' The huts are inconceivably small, a trifle larger than billiard tables " 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NATIVE JAMAICAN 



19 




only about 
15,000 are 

listed in the 
census as 
"white," and 
the whiteness 
of a good 
many of these 
is admittedly 
tarnished by 
a "touch of 
the tarbrush." 
As in every 
country in 
which any 
social rela- 
tion between 
the races is 
not remorse- 
lessly tabooed 
— as it is in 
our southern states — the number of "colored" 
people increases more rapidly than that of either 
black or white. There were in 1834, 15.000 whites 
out of the population of 371,000; there are today 
151605, but the blacks and mongrels have increased 
to more than 800,000. The gradations in color in 
any street group run from the very palest yellow 
to the blackest of Congo black. That is hardly the 
sort of population which the United States desires 
to take to its bosom. 

The Jamaica negro is a natural loafer. Of course 
he works when he must, but betwixt the mild climate, 
the kindly fruits of the earth and the industry of his 
wife or wives, that dire necessity is seldom forced 
upon him. My first glimpse of industrial conditions 
in Jamaica was taken from the deck of a ship warp- 
ing into dock at Kingston. Another ship, lying at 
the same dock, was being coaled. Down and up the 
1000 feet or so of dock tramped long files of inde- 
scribably ragged, black and dirty figures. Those 
going down bore on their heads baskets piled high 
with coal, going back they bore the baskets empty. 
Of the marching figures fully two-thirds were 
women. With tattered skirts tucked up to the 
knees and the merest semblance of waists, barefooted, 
they plodded along. The baskets carried about 65 
pounds of coal each, and for taking one from 



COALING TRANSATLANTIC STEAMSHIPS 



the pile and 
emptying i t 
into the ship's 
bunkers these 
women re- 
ceived half a 
cent. There 
was no merri- 
ment about 
the work, no 
singing as 
among our 
negro rousta- 
bouts on the 
Mississippi. 
Silently with 
shoulders 
squared, 
hands swing- 
ing in rhythm 
and basket 
poised firmly on the head, the women strode along, 
working thus for perhaps eight or nine hours 
and then flocking home chatting noisily as they 
darkened the streets and forced the white-clad 
tourists to shrink aside from grimy contact. On 
the country roads you find lines of women carrv^ing 
fruit and vegetables to market, but seldom a man. 
Yet thus far that weaker sex has not developed a 
suffragette, although they support the colony. 

There is much head work in Jamaica, even if 
there be little brain work. The negroes carry every- 
thing on their heads. The only hat I saw on a man's 
kinky poll was an old derby, reversed, filled with 
yams and thus borne steadily along. A negro given 
a letter to deliver will usually seek a stone to weight 
it down, deposit it thus ballasted amidst his wool 
and do the errand. In Panama an engineer told 
me of ordering a group of Jamaicans to load a wheel- 
barrow with stones and take it to a certain spot. 

"Would you believe it," he said, "when they 
had filled that wheel-barrow, two of the niggers 
lifted it to their companion's head, balanced it and 
he walked off with it as contented as you please." 
The huts in which the negroes live are as a rule 
inconceivably small. They are just a trifle larger 
than a billiard table, built of wattled cane, and plas- 
tered over with clay. The roof is usually a thatch 



20 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



of palm branches, though sometimes ragged strips 
of corrugated iron are employed with much less ar- 
tistic effect. In what corresponds to our tene- 
ments, the rooming places of day laborers, the yard 
rather than the house is the unit. So you will see 
on a tiny shack about the size of a playhouse for 



open air, adds to the gayety of life by grouping so' 
many black families in one corral, reduces the high 
cost of living as our model tenements never can 
hope to, but makes one black landlord independent, 
for the possession of a yard with its rooms all rented 
leaves nothing needed for enjoyment except a 




MARKET WOMEN AND THEIR DONKEYS 
The true industrial forces of Jamaica. Men are seldom seen as carriers or sellers of produce 



children the sign, "Rooms for Rent," which applies 
not to the pigmy edifice bearing it, but to the 
cluster of huts set down helter skelter in the yard. 
The people sleep in the huts, incidentally barring 
them so far as the flimsy construction permits 
against any possible entrance of fresh air. All the 
other activities of life are conducted in the open — 
cooking, eating, sewing, gossiping. A yard is the 
most social place imaginable, and the system not 
. only contributes to health by keeping people in the 



phonograph and an ample supply of the rum for 
which the island is famous. 

Racially the Jamaica peasant is a negro, with vary- 
ing admixtures of white blood. The mongrel breed is 
steadily increasing and the pure white population 
relatively decreasing. Economically the peasant is 
either a day laborer or a servant, and as 40,000 are 
classed as servants in a population where the em- 
ploying class is limited, it follows that employers keep 
many servants and the supply always exceeds the 



LIFE OF THE NEGRO WOMAN 



21 



demand. Children come rapidly to the Jamaicans. 
Marriage is easy and to dispense with it easier stiU, 
so that 62 per cent of the births are illegitimate. 
"My people are very religious," said a mission- 
ary proudly, "but, dear me, how immoral they are!" 

When girls are about twelve 
years old the mothers, tired of 
supporting them, for that task 
is seldom assumed by the 
fathers, take them to town on 
the first market day. The 
little produce being sold, the 
pair proceed from house to 
house seeking some "kine 
missus " who will take a school 
girl. In the end the child be- 
comes the property of who- 
ever will clothe, feed and shel- 
ter her. Pay is not expected, 
though when she grows help- 
ful she is sometimes given an 
occasional gift of silver. The 
rights of the mistress are pa- 
triarchal, and whether or not 
she spoils the child the rod is 
seldom spared. When she 
gets to be seventeen or so the 
girl suddenly disappears in 
the night, with a bundle of 
her clothing. The inevitable 
man has crossed her path and 
she has gone to be his com- 
panion and slave. 

When you think of it there 
is not much economic change 
in her situation. She worked 
for her mistress for nothing — 
she does the same for her hus- 
band, or more commonly 'for 
her "friend." He may work 
spasmodically for her when 
the need of actual money com- 
pels, but as a rule she is the 

wage earner. Always she tends the little garden 
and takes its slender produce to market. Some- 
times she joins the coal-bearing Amazons down at 
the steamship docks. Often she goes back to the 
family which brought her up and offers her services 



anew — this time for a wage. Every house has two 
or three boxes a few feet away serving for servants' 
quarters, but a girl of this type will decline these, 
renting instead a shack in a "yard," taking there 
daily the materials for her dinner usually provided 




ONE WAY OF CARRYING BANANAS 

At the docks of the United Fruit Co., mechanical carriers, so perfected as not to bruise the 
fruit, have replaced the leisurely negro 



by her mistress. At its door, in a brazier, or a tiny 
stove, she will cook the meal for the idle "husband" 
and the children who arrive with mechanical regular- 
ity. After supper there is the gossip of the dozen 
or more women in the yard. 



22 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



The rebuilding of Kingston, compelled by the 
earthquake, is proceeding apace. The town will 
lose much in quaint ness, one can see that by the 
ruins of some of the older structures in which stately 
colonial outlines can be traced. But it will gain 
in adaptation to the climate and the ever-present 




GWINE TO DE BIG JOB ' 



earthquake menace. The main business street — 
King Street, of course, being a British colony — ■ 
is lined on either side with arcaded concrete build- 
ings of a uniform type. Ceilings are high, win- 
dows large and one may walk the three long blocks 
of the busiest business section without emerging 
from the shady arcades. The government build- 
ings, occupying two full squares and setting well 



back from the street, are of a type that suggests 
the streets of India, and are also of reinforced con- 
crete. It is the belief of the authorities that the 
comparative lightness of this material coupled with 
its resistant powers will enable it to survive any 
earthquake. The whole period of the shock of 1 907 

barely exceeded ten seconds, 
but its wreckage will not be 
repaired in ten years. 

The cargo that we have 
taken on from the spice- 
scented dock is technically 
called a "cargo of black 
ivory," made up of negroes 
sailing for Colon to work on 
the "big job." Good-na- 
tured, grinning negroes these, 
though I have heard that, on 
the smaller ships that carry 
them by hundreds for the 
500 miles for five dollars 
each, they sometimes riot 
and make trouble. With us 
they were inoffensive, though 
it is perhaps as well that 
the passenger quarters are 
to windward of them. The 
religious sentiment is strong 
upon them and as the sun 
goes down in the waste of wa- 
ters the wail of hymn tunes 
sung to the accompaniment 
of a fiddle and divers mouth 
organs rises over the whistle 
of the wind and the rumble of 
the machinery. One can but 
reflect that ten years ago, be- 
fore the coming of Col. Gor- 
gas and his sanitation sys- 
tem, three out of five of these 
happy, cheerful blacks would never return alive 
from the Canal Zone. Today they invite no more 
risk than a business man in Chicago going to his 
office, and when their service is ended the 
United States government is obligated to return 
them to Jamaica where for a time their money 
will make them the idols of the markets, lanes 
and yards. 



CHAPTER II 



CRISTOBAL-COLON; AND THE PANAMA RAILROAD 




lOLON is the most considerable 
town on the Caribbean Coast 
north and west of Cartagena. 
It is in fact two towns, 
the older one which is 
still subject to the juris- 
diction of the Republic 
of Panama and which is 
properly called Colon ; 
and the new or American 
town which is in the 
Canal Zone and is called Cristobal. The 
two are separated only by an imaginary line, 
though if you want to mail a letter in 
Colon you must use a Panama stamp, while 
if you get into trouble — civil or criminal — in 
that camp of banditti you will have meted 
out to you the particular form of justice 
which Panamanian judges keep expressly for 
unlucky Gringoes who fall' into their clutches. 
The combined towns are called Cristobal- 
Colon, or in our vernacular Christopher Co- 
lumbus. The name is half French, half 
Spanish, and the town is a medley of all 




nations. For half a century there has been 
trouble of various sorts about the name of the spot — 
which is a sort of caldron of trouble any way. 
The United States wanted to call the port 
Aspinwall, after the principal promoter of 
the Panama Railroad which had its ter- 
minus there, but Colombia, which at that 
time controlled the Isthmus, insisted on 
the name Colon, and finally enforced its 
contention by refusing to receive at its 
post office letters addressed to "Aspin- 
wall." This vigorous action was effective 
and the United States postal authorities 
were obliged to notify users of the mails 
that there was no longer any such place 
on the world's map as Aspinwall. 

The dignity of our outraged nation 
had to be maintained, however, and 
when, a little later, the commission of 
our Consul at Colon expired, the State 
Department refused to replace him be- 
cause it ignored the existence of such a 
place as Colon, while Colombia would 
not admit the existence of an Aspinwall 




TORO POINT LIGHT 
23 



24 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Before its construction 

within its borders. Thus 
democrat was kept out of 
of democratic 
ascendancy. 
Perhaps it was 
pressure for 
this job that 
led our govern- 
ment to yield. 
When the 
French began 
digging the 
canal they 
chose Limon 
Bay, the inlet 
on which Co- 
lon stands, as 
its Atlantic 
terminus and 
established a 
town of their 
own which 
they called 
Cristobal, be- 
ing the French 



TORO POINT BREAKWATER 

northers often made the harbor of Colon untenable for ships 



form of Christopher. ' 
Hence Cristobal-Co- 
lon, the official name 
which appears on all 
accurate maps of the 
present day. 

It is one of the 
traditions of the town 
that a tramp steamer, 
commanded by a Ger- 
man, came plowing in 
from the sea one 
morning and, passing 
without attention the 
docks of Colon, went 
gaily on up Limon 
Bay until she ran 
smack into the land. 
Being jeered at for his 
unusual method of 
navigation ths captain 
produced his charts. 
"That town is Colon? 
Veil dere are two towns. My { 



for some time a good No? Is it not so? 

a job — it was the period port is Colon. Cristobal comes first. I pass it 




THE NEW CRISTOBAL DOCKS 



THE APPROACH TO COLON 



25 




"palms which blend with the sea" 



I go on to Colon and by thunder dere is no Colon. 
Nothing but mud." It is recorded that the skip- 
per's explanation was accepted and that he was 
acquitted of wilfully casting away his vessel. 

We reach Colon where lie the docks of the Royal 
Mail in the early morning. To the right as we steam 
into Limon Bay is the long breakwater of Toro 
Point extending three miles into the Caribbean, 
the very first Atlantic outpost of the canal. For 
it was necessary to create here a largely artificial 
harbor, as Limon Bay affords no safe anchorage 
when the fierce northers sweep down along the 
coast. In the early days of Colon, when it was the 
starting point of the gold seekers' trail to Panama, 
ships in its harbor were compelled to cut and run 
for the safer, though now abandoned, harbor of 
Porto Bello some twenty miles down the coast. 



That condition the great breakwater corrects. 
From the ship one sees a line of low hills forming 
the horizon with no break or indentation to suggest 
that here man is cutting the narrow gate between 
the oceans for the commerce of the nations to pass. 
The town at a distance is not unprepossessing. 
White houses with red roofs cluster together on a 
flat island scarcely above the water, and along the 
sea front lines of cocoanut palms bend before the 
breeze. No other tree seems so fitly to blend with 
a white beach and blue sea as this palm. Its natural 
curves are graceful and characteristic and in a stiff 
breeze it bows and sways and rustles with a grace 
and a music all its own. 

But the picturesqueness of Colon does not long 
survive a closer approach. The white houses are 
seen to be mere frame buildings of the lightest 



26 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




COLON IN 1884 
The author counted twelve ocean liners one day at the docks now standing at this spot 



construction which along the seafront stand out 
over the water on stilts. No building of any dis- 
tinction meets the eye, unless it be the new Wash- 
ington Hotel, a good bit of Moorish architecture, 
owned and conducted by the Panama Railroad 
which in turn is owned by the United States. The 
activities of Uncle Sam as a hotel keeper on the 
Isthmus will be worth further attention. 

As we warp into the dock we observe that Colon 
is a seaport of some importance already. The day 
I reached there last I counted six British, two 
German, one French and three American steam- 
ships. The preponderance of British flags was the 
first thing to catch the eye; and somehow the feel- 
ing that, except for the Royal Mail ship, all the 
vessels over which they were waving were owned 
by American capital was not a little humiliating. 
It is quite probable that in the course of the 



year every foreign flag appears at Cristobal-Colon, 
for the ocean tramp ships are ever coming and 
going. In time, too, the docks, which are now rather 
rickety, will be worthy of the port, for the government 
is building modern and massive docks on the Cris- 
tobal side of the line. 

At present however one lands at Colon, which 
has the disadvantage of depositing you in a foreign 
country with all the annoyances of a custom house 
examination to endure. Though your destination is 
the Canal Zone, only a stone's throw away, every 
piece of baggage must be opened and inspected. 
The search is not very thorough, and I fancy the 
Panama tariff is not very comprehensive, but the 
formality is an irritating one. Protective tariffs 
will never be wholly popular with travelers. 

The town which greets the voyager emerging from 
the cool recesses of the steamship freight house looks 



THE ARCHITECTURE AND POPULATION OF COLON 



27 



something like the landward side of Atlantic City's 
famous board walk with the upper stories of the 
hotels sliced off. The buildings are almost without 
exception wood, two stories high, and with wooden 
galleries reaching to the curb and there supported 
by slender posts. It does not look foreign — merely 
cheap and tawdry. Block after block the lines of 
business follow each other in almost unvarying 
sequence. A saloon, a Chinese shop selling dry 
goods and curios, a kodak shop with curios, a 
saloon, a lottery agency, another saloon, a money- 
changer's booth, another saloon and so on for what 
seems about the hottest and smelliest half mile 
one ever walked. There is no "other side" to the 
street, for there run the tracks of the Panama rail- 
road, beyond them the bay, and further along lies the 
American town of Cristobal where there are no stores, 
but only the residences and work shops of Canal 
workers. Between Cristobal and tinder box Colon 
is a wide space kept clear of houses as a fire guard. 



Colon's population is as mixed as the complexions 
of its people. It must be admitted with regret that 
pure American names are most in evidence on the 
signboards of its saloons, and well-equipped students 
of the social life of the town remark that the Amer- 
ican vernacular is the one usually proceeding from 
the lips of the professional gamblers. Merchandising 
is in the main in the hands of the Chinese, who 
compel one's admiration in the tropics by the in- 
telligent way in which they have taken advantage 
of the laziness of the natives to capture for them- 
selves the best places in the business community. 

Most of the people in Colon live over their stores 
and other places of business, though back from the 
business section are a few comfortable looking resi- 
dences, and I noticed others being built on made 
land, as though the beginnings of a mild "boom" 
were apparent. The newer houses are of concrete, 
as is the municipal building and chief public school. 
The Panama Railroad owns most of the land on 




FIRE-FIGHTING FORCE AT CRISTOBAL 



28 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




THE NEW WASHINGTON HOTEL 

which the town stands, and to which 
tically limited, and the road is said to 
be encouraging the use of cement or 
concrete by builders — an exceedingly 
wise policy, as the town has suffered 
from repeated fires, in one of which, in 
191 1, ten blocks were swept away and 
1200 people left homeless. The Isth- 
mian Canal Commission maintains 
excellent fire-fighting forces both in 
Cristobal and Ancon, and when the 
local fire departments proved impo- 
tent to cope with the flames both of 
these forces were called into play, the 
Ancon engines and men being rushed 
by special train over the forty-five 
miles of railroad. Of course the fire 
was in foreign territory, but the Re- 
public of Panama did not resent the 
invasion. Since that day many of the 
new buildings have been of concrete, 
but the prevailing type of architecture 
may be described as a modified renais- 
sance of the mining shack. 

It is idle to look for points of inter- 
est in Colon proper. There are none. 
But the history of the town though 
running over but sixty years is full of 
human interest. It did not share with 
Panama the life of the Spanish domi- 
nation and aggression. Columbus, 
Balboa and the other navigators sailed 
by its site without heed, making for 
Porto Bello or Nombre de Dios, the 
better harbors. San Lorenzo, whose 



it is prac- 



ruins stand at the mouth of the Chagres River, 
looked down upon busy fleets, and fell before 
the assaults of Sir Henry Morgan and his bucca- 
neers while the coral island that now upholds Colon 
was tenanted only by pelicans, alligators and ser- 
pents. The life of man touched it when in 1850 the 
American railroad builders determined to make it 
the Atlantic terminus of the Panama road. Since 
then it never has lost nor will it lose a true inter- 
national importance. 

Manzanilla Island, on which the greater part of 
Colon now stands, was originally a coral reef, on 
which tropical vegetation had taken root, and died 
down to furnish soil for a new jungle until by the repe- 




THE ONLY STONE CHURCH IN COLON 

The ritual is of the Church of England; the congregation almost wholly Jamaica negroes 



RAILROAD BUILDING IN A SWAMP 



29 



tition of this process through the ages a foot or two of 
soil raised itself above the surface of the water and 
supported a swampy jungle. When the engineers 
first came to locate there the beginnings of the 
Panama railroad, they were compelled to make their 
quarters in an old sailing ship in danger at all times 



shrubs defying entrance even to the wild beasts 
common to the country. In the black slimy mud 
of its surface alligators and other reptiles abounded, 
while the air was laden with pestilential vapors and 
swarming with sandflies and mosquitoes. These last 
proved so annoying to the laborers that unless their 




NATURE OF COUNTRY NEAR COLON 
Through this water-logged region the Panama railroad was built at heavy cost in money and lives 



of being carried out to sea by a norther. In his 
"History of the Panama Railroad," published in 
1862, F. N. Otis describes the site of the present 
city when first fixed thus: 

"This island cut off from the mainland by a nar- 
row frith contained an area of a little more than one 
square mile. It was a virgin swamp, covered with 
a dense growth of the tortuous, water-loving man- 
grove, and interlaced with huge vines and thorny 



faces were protected by gauze veils no work could 
be done even at midday. Residence on the island 
was impossible. The party had their headquarters 
in an old brig which brought down materials for 
building, tools, provisions, etc., and was anchored 
in the bay." 

That was in May, 1850. In March, 1913, the 
author spent some time in Colon. Excellent meals 
were enjoyed in a somewhat old-fashioned frame 



30 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




PANAMA POTTERY SELLERS 

hotel, while directly across the way the finishing 
touches were being put to a new hotel, of reinforced 
concrete which for architectural taste and beauty of 
position compares well with any seashore house in 
the world. At the docks were ships of every nation ; 
cables kept us in communication with all civilized 
capitals. Not an insect of any sort was seen, and 
to discover an alligator a considerable journey was 
necessary. The completed Panama Railroad would 
carry us in three hours to the Pacific, where the 
great water routes spread out again like a fan. In 
half a century man had wrought this change, and 
with his great canal will doubt- 
less do more marvelous deeds 
in the time to come. 

Once construction of the 
road was begun shacks rose 
on piles amid the swampy 
vegetation of the island. At 
certain points land was filled 
in and a solid foundation 
made for machine shops. The 
settlement took a sudden 
start forward in 1851 when a 
storm prevented two New 
York ships from landing their 
passengers at the mouth of 
the Chagres River. 

The delayed travelers were 
instead landed at Colon, and 
the rails having been laid as 



far as Gatun, where the great locks 
now rise, they were carried thither by 
the railroad. This route proving the 
more expeditious the news quickly 
reached New York and the ships be- 
gan making Colon their port. As a 
result the town grew as fast and as 
unsubstantially as a mushroom. 

It was a floating population of 
people from every land and largely 
lawless. The bard of the Isthmus, 
has a poem too long to quote which 
depicts' a wayfarer at the gate of 
Heaven confessing to high crimes, 
misdemeanors and all the sinful lusts 
of the flesh. At the close of the, 
damning confession he whispered 
something in the ear of the Saint, whose brow 
cleared, and beaming welcome took the place of 
stern rejection. The keeper of the keys according 
to the poet cried : 

"Climb up, Oh, weary one, climb, up! 

Climb high! Climb higher yet 
Until you reach the plush-lined seats 

That only martyrs get. 
Then sit you down and rest yourself 

While years of bliss roll on! 
Then to the angels he remarked, 

'He's been livins, in Colon!' " 




HINDOO LABORERS ON THE CANAL 
At one time several hundred were employed but they are disappearing 



THE FRENCH COME TO COLON 



31 




SAN BLAS BOATS AT EARLY DAWN 

With the completion of the Pacific railroads in 
the United States the prosperity of Colon for a 
time waned. There was still business for the rail- 
road, as there has been to the present day, and as it 
is believed there will be in the future despite the 
Canal. But the great rush was ended. The eager 
men hurrying to be early at the place where gold 
was to be found, and the men who had "made their 
pile" hastening home to spend it, took the road 
across the plains. Colon settled down to a period 
of lethargy for which its people were constitution- 
ally well fitted. Once in a while they were stirred 
up by reports of the projected Canal, and the 
annual revolutions — President Roosevelt in a mes- 
sage to Congress noted 53 in 57 years — prevented 
life from becoming wholly mo- 
notonous. But there was no 
sign of a renewal of the flush 
times of the gold rush until 
late in the '70's the Frenca 
engineers arrived to begin 
the surveys for the Canal. By 
the way, that Isthmus from 
Darien to Nicaragua is proba- 
bly the most thoroughly sur- 
veyed bit of wild land in the 
world. Even on our own 
Canal Zone where the general 
line of the Canal was early 
determined each chief engineer 
had his own survey made, 
and most of the division 






engineers prudently resurveyed the lines of their 
chiefs. 

With the coming of the French, flush times began 
again on the Isthmus and the golden flood poured 
most into Colon, as the Canal diggers made their 
main base of operations there, unlilve the Americans 
who struck at nature's fortifications all along the line, 
making their headquarters at Culebra about the 
center of the Isthmus. 
But though the French 
failed to dig the Canal 
they did win popiilarity 
on the Isthmus, and 
there are regretful and 
uncomplimentary com- 
parisons drawn in the 
cafes and other meet- 
ing-places between the 
thrift and calculation 
of the Americans, and 
the lavish prodigality 
of the French. Every- 
thing they bought was 
at mining-camp prices 
and they adopted no 
such plan as the com- 
missary system now in 

vogue to save their workers from the rapacity of 
native shopkeepers of all sorts. 

At Cristobal you are gravely taken to see the 
De Lesseps Palace, a huge frame house with two 




SAN BLAS INDIAN BOYS 




SAN BLAS LUGGER PUTTING OUT TO SEA 



32 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



wings, now in the last stages of decrepitude and de- 
cay, but which you learn cost fabulous sums, was fur- 
nished and decorated like a royal chateau and was the 
scene of bacchanalian feasts that vied with those of 
the Romans in the days of Heliogabalus. At least 
the native Panamanian will tell you this, and if you 
happen to enjoy his reminiscences in the environ- 



'When the money flowed like likker .... 
With the joints all throwed wide open, and no sheriff to | 

demur.' 

Vice flourished. Gambling of every kind and every 
other form of wickedness were common day and 
night. The blush of shame became practically 
unknown." 




THE ATLANTIC FLEET VISITS THE ISTHMUS 



ment of a cafe you will conclude that in starting 
the Canal the French consumed enough champagne 
to fill it. 

Mr. Tracy Robinson, a charming chronicler of 
the events of a lifetime on the Isthmus, says of this 
period: "From the time that operations were well 
under way until the end, the state of things was 
like the life at 'Red Hoss Mountain' described by 
Eugene Field: 



The De Lesseps house stands at what has been 
the most picturesque point in the American town 
of Cristobal. Before it stands a really admirable 
work of art, Columbus in the attitude of a protector 
toward a half -nude Indian maiden who kneels at his 
side. After the fashion of a world largely indifferent 
to art the name of the sculptor has been lost, but 
the statue was cast in Turin, for Empress Eugenie, 
who gave it to the Republic of Colombia when the 



THE BEAUTIFUL ROOSEVELT AVENUE 



33 



French took up the Canal work. Buffeted from site 
to site, standing for awhile betwLxt the tracks in a 
railroad freight yard, the spot on which it stood 
when viewed by the writer is sentimentally ideal, 
for it overlooks the entrance to the Canal and under 
the eyes of the Great Navigator, done in bronze, 
the ships of all the world will pass and repass as 



white foam upon the shore, unlike the Pacific which 
is usually calm. Unlike the Pacific, too, the tide is 
inconsiderable. At Panama it rises and falls from 
seventeen to twenty feet, and, retiring, leaves long 
expanses of unsightly mud fiats, but the Caribbean 
always plays its part in the landscape well. Un- 
happily this picturesque street — called Roosevelt 




ROOSEVELT AVENUE, CRISTOBAL, ABOUT TO LOSE ITS BEAUTY 



they enter or leave the artificial strait which gives 
substance to the Spaniard's dream. 

At one time the quarters of the Canal employees 
— the gold employees as those above the grade of 
day laborers are called — were in one of the most 
beautiful streets imaginable. In a long sweeping 
curve from the border line between the two towns, 
they extended in an unbroken row facing the rest- 
less blue waters of the Caribbean. A broad white 
drive and a row of swaying cocoanut trees separated 
the houses from the water. The sea here is always 
restless, surging in long billows and breaking in 



Avenue — is about to lose its beauty, for its water 
front is to be taken for the great new docks, and 
already at some points one sees the yellow stacks 
of ocean liners mingling with the fronded tops of 
the palms. 

Cristobal is at the present time the site of the 
great cold storage plant of the Canal Zone, the shops 
of the Panama Railroad and the storage warehouses 
in which are kept the supplies for the commissary 
stores at the different villages along the line of the 
Canal. It possesses a fine fire fighting force, a 
Y. M. C. A. club, a commissary hotel, and along 



34 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



the water front of Colon proper are the hospital 
buildings erected by the French but still maintained. 
Many of the edifices extend out over the water and 




THE DE LESSEPS PALACE 

the constant breeze ever blowing through their wide 
netted balconies would seem to be the most efficient 
of allies in the fight against disease. One finds less 
distinct separation between the 
native and the American towns 
at this end of the railroad than 
at Panama - Ancon. This is 
largely due to the fact that a 
great part of the site of Colon is 
owned by the Panama Railroad, 
which in turn is owned by the 
United States, so that the activi- 
ties of our government extend 
into the native town more than 
at Panama. In the latter city 
the hotel, the hospital and the 
commissary are all on American 
or Canal Zone soil — at Colon 
they are within the sovereignty of 
the Republic of Panama. 

At present sightseers tarry 
briefly at Colon, taking the first 
train for the show places along the Canal line, or for 
the more picturesque town of Panama. This will 
probably continue to be the case when the liners 
begin passing through the Canal to the Pacific. 
Many travelers will doubtless leave their ships at 



the Atlantic side, make a hasty drive about Colon — 
it really can be seen in an hour — and then go by rail 
to Panama, anticipating the arrival of their ship 

there by seven hours and 
getting some idea of the 
country en route. Visi- 
tors with more time to 
spare will find one of the 
short drives that is worth 
while a trip to the ceme- 
tery of Mount Hope where 
from the very beginning 
of the town those who fell 
in the long battle with 
nature have been laid to 
rest. The little white 
headstones multiplied fast 
in the gay and reckless 
French days before sani- 
tation was thought of, and 
when riot and dissipation 
were the rule and scarcely discouraged. "Monkey 
Hill" was the original name of the place, owing to 
the multitude of monkeys gamboling and chattering 




THE NATIONAL GAME — COCK-FIGHTING 

in the foliage, but as the graves multiplied and 
the monkeys vanished the rude unfitness of the 
name became apparent and it gave place to " Amount 
Hope." It is pitiful enough in any case; but if you 
will study the dates on the headstones you will find 



COLON STREETS IN THE EARLY DAYS 



35 



the years after 1905 show a rapid lessening in the 
number of tenants. 

If you consider the pictures of certain streets of 
Colon during two phases of their history, you will 
have little trouble in understanding why the death 
rate in the town has been steadily decreasing. In a 
town built upon a natural morass, and on which 



reaching a floating board benevolently provided 
by some merchant who hoped to thus bring custom 
to his doors. Along the water front between the 
steamship piers and the railroad there was an effort 
to pave somewhat as there was heavy freight to 
be handled, but even there the pavement would 
sink out of sight overnight, and at no time could it 




HOW THE JUNGLE WORKS 
Silently but persistently the advance of nature enshrouds man's work in living green 



more than eleven feet of water fell annually, there 
was hardly a foot of paving except the narrow 
sidewalks. In the wet season, which extends over 
eight months of the year, the mud in these filthy 
by-ways was almost waist deep. Into it was thrown 
indiscriminately all the household slops, garbage 
and offal. There was no sewage system; no effort 
at drainage. If one wished to cross a street there 
was nothing for it but to walk for blocks until 



be kept in good condition. The agents of the 
Panama Railroad and the Royal Mail Steam Packet 
Company, whose freight houses adjoined, dumped 
into the seemingly bottomless abyss everj^thing 
heavy and solid that could be brought b}^ land or 
water, but for a long time without avail. Under the 
direction of the United States officers, however, the 
problem was solved, and today the streets of 
Colon are as well paved as those of any Ameri- 



36 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



can city, vitrified brick being the material chiefly 
used. 

In the days when there was no pavement there 
were no sewers. Today the town is properly drained, 
and the sewage problem, a very serious one in a 
town with no natural slope and subject to heavy 
rains, is efficiently handled. There was no water 
supply. Drinking water was brought from the 



failing died like the flies that swarmed about their 
food and their garbage indiscriminately. Not until 
the Americans declared war on filth and appointed 
Col. W. C. Gorgas commander-in-chief of the forces 
of cleanliness and health did Colon get cleaned up. 
About the base of the Toro light cluster the 
houses of the engineers employed on the harbor 
work, and on the fortifications which are to guard 




"bottle alley" 
A typical Colon street before the Sanitary Department concluded the work of cleaning up 



mainland and peddled from carts, or great jars by 
water carriers. Today there is an aqueduct bringing 
clear cool water from the distant hills. It affords a 
striking commentary upon the lethargy and laziness 
of the natives that for nearly half a century they 
should have tolerated conditions which for filth and 
squalor were practically unparalleled. The Indian 
in his palm-thatched hut was better housed and more 
healthfully surrounded than they. 

Even the French failed to correct the evil and so 



the Atlantic entrance of the canal on the west side — 
other defensive works are building about a mile 
north of Colon. To these and other forts in course 
of construction visitors are but grudgingly admitted 
and the camera is wholly taboo. They are still 
laughing in Col. Goethal's office at a newly elected 
Congressman — not even yet sworn in — who wrote 
that in visiting the Canal Zone he desired particu- 
larly to make an exhaustive study of the fortifica- 
tions, and take many pictures, in order that he 



THE VARIED POPULATION OF COLON 



27 



might be peculiarly fit for membership on the Mili- 
tary Affairs Committee, to which he aspired. 

Toro Point wiU, after the completion of the 
Canal work, remain only as the camp for such a de- 
tachment of coast artillery as may be needed at 
the forts. The village will be one of those surren- 
dered to the jungle from which it was wrested. 
Cristobal will remain a large, and I should judge, 



group of children, among whom even the casual ob- 
server will detect Spanish, Chinese, Indian and negro 
types pure, and varying amalgamations of all play- 
ing together in the childish good fellowship which 
obliterates all racial hostilities. The Chinese are 
the chief business people of the town, and though 
they intermarry but little with the few families of 
the old Spanish strain, their unions both legalized 




D STREET, COLON, PAVED 
Before being sewered and paved this street was as bad as Bottle Alley on preceding page 



a growing town. Colon which was created by the 
railroad will still have the road and the Canal to 
support it. 

Without an architectural adornment worthy of 
the name, with streets of shanties, and rows of shops 
in which the cheap and shoddy are the rule, the 
town of Colon does have a certain fascination to 
the idle stroller. That arises from the throngs of its 
picturesque and parti-colored people who are always 
on the streets. At one point you will encounter a 



and free, with the mulattoes or negroes are in- 
numerable. You see on the streets many children 
whose negro complexion and kinky hair combine 
but comically with the almond eyes of the celestial. 
Luckily queues are going out of style with the 
Chinese, or the hair of their half-breed offspring 
would form an insurmountable problem. 

Public characters throng in Colon. A town with 
but sixty years of history naturally abounds in 
early inhabitants. It is almost as bad as Chicago 



38 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



"^ 




BACHELOR QUARTERS AT TORO POINT 



was a few years ago when citizens who had reached 
the ' ' anecdotage ' ' would halt you at the Lake Front 
and pointing to that smoke-bedimmed cradle of the 
city's dreamed-of future beauty would assure you 
that they could have bought it all for a pair of 
boots — but didn't have the boots. One of the 
figures long pointed out on the streets of Colon was 
an old colored man — an "ole nigger" in the local 
phrase — who had been there from the days of the 
alligators and the monkeys. He worked for the 
Panama Railroad surveyors, the road when com- 
pleted, the French and the American Canal builders. 
A sense of long and veteran public service had in- 
vested him with an air of dignity rather out of har- 
mony with his raiment. "John Aspinwall" they 
called him, because Aspinwall was for a time the 
name of the most regal significance on the island. 
The Poet of Panama immortalized him in verse 
thus: 



"Oh, a quaint old moke, is John Aspinwall, 

Who lives by the Dead House gate. 
And quaint are his thoughts, if thoughts at all 

Ever lurk in his woolly pate, 
For he's old as the hills is this coal-black man, 

Thrice doubled with age is he, 
And the days when his wanderings first began 

Are shrouded in mystery." 

If you keep a shrewd and watchful eye on the 
balconies above the cheap john stores you will now 
and again catch a little glimpse reminiscent of Pekin. 
For the Chinese like to hang their balconies with 
artistic screens, bedeck them with palms, illuminate 
them with the gay lanterns of their home. Some- 
times a woman of complexion of rather accentuated 
brunette will hang over the rail with a Chinese — 
or at least a Chinesque — baby in the parti-colored 
clothing of its paternal ancestors. Or as you stroll 
along the back or side streets more given over 



SAN BLAS INDIANS AND THEIR CAYUCAS 



39 



to residences, an open door here and there gives a 
gUmpse of an interior crowded with household 
goods — and household gods which are babies. Not 
precisely luring are these views. They suggest rather 
that the daily efforts of Col. Gorgas to make and 
keep the city clean might well have extended further 
behind the front doors of the house. They did to a 
slight degree, of course, for there was fumigation 
unlimited in the first days of the great cleaning up, 
and even now there is persistent sanitary inspection. 
The Canal Zone authorities relinquished to the 
Panama local officials the paving and sanitation 
work of the city, but retained it in Colon, which 
serves to indicate the estimate put upon the com- 
parative fitness for self government of the people 
of the two towns. 

Down by the docks, if one likes the savor of 
spices and the odor of tar, you find the real society 
of the Seven Seas. Every variety of ship is there, 
from the stately ocean liner just in from South- 
ampton or Havre to the schooner-rigged cayuca 
with its crew of San Bias Indians, down from their 
forbidden country with a cargo of cocoanuts, yams 
and bananas. A curious craft is the cayuca. Rang- 
ing in size from a slender canoe twelve feet long 
and barely wide enough to hold a man to a con- 
siderable craft of eight-foot beam and perhaps 35 
to 40 feet on the water line, its many varieties have 
one thing in common. Each is hewn out of a single 
log. Shaped to the form of a boat by the universal 




A COLON WATER CARRIER 




AN OPEN SEWER IN A COLON STREET 



tool, the machete, and hol- 
lowed out partly by burning, 
partly by chipping, these 
great logs are transformed in- 
to craft that in any hands 
save those of the Indians 
bred to their use, would be 
peremptory invitations to a 
watery death. But the San 
Bias men pole them through 
rapids on the Chagres that 
would puzzle a guide of our 
North Woods, or at sea take 
them out in northers that 
keep the liner tied to her dock. 
Some of these boats by the 
way are hollowed from ma- 
hogany logs that on the 
wharf at New York or Bos- 
ton would be worth $2,000. 

The history of the Panama Railroad may well be 
briefly sketched here. For its time it was the most 
audacious essay in railway building the world had 
known, for be it known it was begun barely twenty 
years after the first railroad had been built in the 
United States and before either railroad engineers 
or railroad labor had a recognized place in industry. 
The difficulties to be surmounted were of a sort 
that no men had grappled with before. Engineers 
had learned how to cut down hills, tunnel mountains 

and bridge rivers, but to 
build a road bed firm 
enough to support heavy 
trains in a bottomless 
swamp; to run a line 
through a jungle that 
seemed to grow up again 
before the transit could 
follow the axe man; to 
grapple with a river that 
had been known to rise 
forty feet in a day; to eat 
lunch standing thigh deep 
in water with friendly 
alligators looking on from 
adjacent logs, and to do 
all this amid the unceas- 
ing buzz of venomous 



40 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




BY A COCLE BROOK 



insects whose sting, as we 
learned half a century 
later, carried the germs of 
malaria and yellow fever 
— this was a new draft 
upon engineering skill and 
endurance that might 
well stagger the best. The 
demand was met. The 
road was built, but at a 
heavy cost of life. It 
used to be said that a life 
was the price of every tie 
laid, but this was a pic- 
turesque exaggeration. 
About 6000 men in all 
died during the construc- 
tion period. 

Henry Clay justified 
his far-sightedness by se- 
curing, in 1835 the crea- 
tion of a commission to 
consider the practicability of a trans-isthmian rail- 
road. A commissioner was appointed, secured a con- 
cession from what was then New Granada, died before 
getting home, and the whole matter was forgotten 
for ten years. In this interim the French, for whom 
from the earliest days the Isthmus had a fascina- 
tion, secured a concession but were unable to raise 
the money necessary for the road's construction. 
In 1849 three Americans who deserve a place in 
history, William H. Aspinwall, John L. Stevens and 
Henry Chauncy, secured a concession at Bogota and 
straightway went to work. Difficulties beset them 
on every side. The swamp had no bottom and for 
a time it seemed that their financial resources had a 
very apparent one. But the rush for gold, though 
it greatly increased the cost of their labor, made 
their enterprise appear more promising to the in- 
vesting public and their temporary need of funds 
was soon met. 

But the swamp and jungle were unrelenting in 
their toll of human life. Men working all day deep 
in slimy ooze composed of decaying tropical vegeta- 
tion, sleeping exposed to the bites of malaria-bear- 
ing insects, speedily sickened and too often died. 
The company took all possible care of its workmen, 
but even that was not enough. Working men of 



every nationality were experimented with but none 
were immune. The historian of the railroad re- 
ported that the African resisted longest, next the 
coolie, then the European, and last the Chinese. 
The experience of the company with the last named 
class of labor was tragic in the extreme. Eight 
hundred were landed on the Isthmus after a voyage 
on which sixteen had died. Thirty-two fell ill almost 
at the moment of landing and in less than a week 
eighty more were prostrated. Strangers in a strange 
land, unable to express their complaints or make 
clear their symptoms, they were almost as much the 
victims of homesickness as of any other ill. The 
interpreters who accompanied them declared that 
much of their illness was due to their deprivation of 
their accustomed opium, and for a time the authori- 
ties supplied them, with the result that nearly two- 




THE MANGOES MARCHING ON STILT-LIKE ROOTS 







Copyri^;Iu, 1913, F. K. Wriglit. 

GOING TO MARKET 

Jamaica country roads are gay with women in brightly colored dresses, carrying the products of their little farms to market. The 
burden is always borne on the head with the result that peasant women have a graceful and e\en stately carriage. 



THE GHASTLY STORY OF THE CHINESE 



41 




A PICTURESQUE INLET OF THE CARIBBEAN 



thirds were again up and able to work. Then the 
exaggerated American moral sense, which is so apt . 
to ignore the customs of other lands and peoples, 
caused the opium supply to be shut off. Perhaps the 
fact that the cost of opium daily per Chinaman was 
15 cents had something to do with it. At any rate 
the whole body of Chinamen were soon sick unto 
death and quite ready for it. They made no effort 
to cling to the lives that had become hateful. Sui- 
cides were a daily occurrence and in all forms. 
Some with Chinese stolidity would sit upon a rock 
on the ocean's bed and wait for the tide to submerge 
them. Many used their own queues as ropes and 
hanged themselves. Others persuaded or bribed 
their fellows to shoot them dead. Some thrust 
sharpened sticks through their throats, or clutching 
great stones leaped into the river maintaining their 
hold until death made the grasp still more rigid. 
Some starved themselves and others died of mere 
brooding over their dismal state. In a few weeks 
, but 200 were left alive, and these were sent to 



Jamaica where they were slowly absorbed by the 
native population. On the line of the old Panama 
Railroad, now abandoned and submerged by the 
waters of Gatun Lake, was a village called Matachin, 
which local etymologists declare means "dead 
Chinaman," and hold that it was the scene of this 
melancholy sacrifice of oriental life. 

The railroad builders soon found that the expense 
of the construction would vastly exceed their esti- 
mates. The price of a principality went into the 
Black Swamp, the road bed through which was prac- 
tically floated on a monster pontoon. It is not true, 
as often asserted, that engines were sunlv there to 
make a foundation for the road, but numbers of flat 
cars were thus employed to furnish a floating foun- 
dation. The swamp which impeded the progress 
of the road was about five miles south of Gatun 
and was still giving trouble in 1908, when the heavier 
American rolling stock was put upon the road. 
Soundings then made indicate that the solid bottom 
under the ooze is 185 feet below the surface, and 



42 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



somewhere between are the scores of dump cars 
and the thousands of tons of rock and earth with 
which the monster has been fed. The Americans 
conquered it, apparently, in 1908, by building a 
trestle and filling it with cinders and other light 
material. But every engineer was glad when in 
1912 the relocation of the road abandoned the Black 
Swamp to its original diabolical devices. 

Even in so great an affair as the building of rail- 
roads, chance or good fortune plays a considerable 
part. So it was the hurricane which first drove 
two ships bearing the California gold seekers from 
the mouth of the Chagres down to Colon that gave 
the railroad company just the stimulus necessary 
to carry it past the lowest ebb in its fortunes. 
Before that it had no income and could no longer 
borrow money. Thereafter it had a certain income 
and its credit was at the very best. Every addi- 
tional mile finished added to its earnings, for every 
mile was used since it lessened the river trip to the 
Pacific. In January, 1855, the last rail was laid, 
and on the 28th of that month the first train crossed 
from ocean to ocean. The road had then cost almost 
$7,000,000 or more than $150,000 a mile, but owing 
to the peculiar conditions of the time and place it 
had while building earned $2,125,000 or almost 
one-third its cost. Its length was 47 miles, its 
highest point was 263 feet above sea-level, it crossed 
streams at 170 points — most of the crossings being 
of the Chagres River. As newly located by the 
American engineers a great number of these cross- 




CHILDISH BEAUTY WITHOUT ART 




A CORNER OF MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY 
Names of forgotten French martyrs are carved in the stones 



ings are avoided. 
Traffic for the 
road grew faster 
than the road it- 
self and when it 
was completed it 
was quite appar- 
ent that it was 
not equipped to 
handle the busi- 
ness that awaited 
it. Accordingly 
the managers de- 
termined to 
charge more than 
the traffic would 
bear — to fix such 
rates as would be 
prohibitive until 
they could get 
the road suitably 
equipped. M r . 
Tracy Robinson 

says that a few of the lesser officials at Panama 
got up a sort of burlesque rate card and sent it on 
to the general offices in New York. It charged 
$25 for one fare across the Isthmus one way, or 
$10 second class. Personal baggage was charged 
five cents a pound, express $1.80 a cubic foot, second 
class freight fifty cents a cubic foot, coal $5 a ton, — 
all for a haul of forty-seven miles. To the amaze- 
ment of the Panama 
jokers the rates were 
adopted and, what was 
more amazing, they 
remained unchanged 
for twenty years. Diur- 
ing that time the com- 
pany paid dividends 
of 24%, with an occa- 
sional stock dividend 
and liberal additions 
to the surplus. Its 
stock at one time went 
up to 335 and as in its 
darkest days it could 
have been bought for 
a song those who had 



COST AND CHARGES OF THE PANAMA RAILROAD 



43 



bought it were more lucky than most of the prospec- 
tors who crowded its coaches on the journey to 
the gold fields. 

■ Too much prosperity brought indifference and lax 
management and the finances of the road were 
showing a decided deterioration when the French 
took up the Canal problem. One of the chief values 
of the franchise granted by New Granada and after- 
ward renewed by Colombia was the stipulation that 
no canal should be built in the territory without the 
consent of the railroad corporation. With this club 
the directors forced the French to buy them out, 
and when the rights of the French Canal company 
passed to the United States we acquired the railroad 
as well. 

It is now Uncle Sam's first essay in the govern- 
ment ownership and operation of railroads. Ex- 
tremists declare that his success as a manager is 
shown by the fact that he takes a passenger from 





THE SOULFUL EYKS OF THE TROPICS 



MARKET D.\Y AT DAVID 



the Atlantic to 
the Pacific in 
three hours for 
$2.40, while the 
privately owned 
Pacific railroads 
take several days 
and charge about 
$75 to accom- 
plish the same re- 
sult. There is a 
fallacy in this 
argument some- 
where, but there 
is none in the 
assertion that by 
government 
officials the Pana- 
ma Railroad is 
run successfully 
both from the point of service and of profits. Its 
net earnings for the fiscal year of 1912 were 
$1,762,000, of which about five-sixths was from 
commercial business. But it must be remembered 
that in that year the road was conducted primarily 
for the purpose of Canal building — everything 
was subordinated to the Big Job. That brought 
it abnormal revenue, and laid upon it abnormal 
burdens. The record shows however that it was 
directed with a singular attention to detail and 
phenomenal success. When passenger trains must 
be run so as never to interfere with dirt trains, 
and when dirt trains must be so run that a few score 
steam-shovels dipping up five cubic yards of broken 
rock at a mouthful shall never lack for a flat car on 
which to dump the load, it means some fine work 
for the traffic manager. The superintendent of 
schools remarked to me that the question whether 
a passenger train should stop at a certain station 
to pick up school children depended on the con- 
venience of certain steam-shovels and that the mat- 
ter had to be decided by Col. Goethals. Which goes 
to show that the Colonel's responsibilities are varied 
— but of that more anon, as the story-tellers say. 

Within a few years forty miles of the Panama 
Railroad have been relocated, the prime purpose of 
the change being to obviate the necessity of crossing 
the Canal at any point. One of the witticisms of 



44 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




SCENE ON ALMIRANTE BAY 



the Zone is that the Panama is the only railroad 
that runs crosswise as well as lengthwise. This 
jest is partly based on the fact that nine-tenths of 
the line has been moved to a new location, but more 
on the practice of picking up every night or two 
some thousand feet of track in the Canal bed and 
moving it bodily, ties and all, some feet to a new line. 
This is made necessary when the steam-shovels have 
dug out all the rock and dirt that can be reached 
from the old line, and it is accomplished by machines 
called track shifters, each of which accomplishes the 
work of hundreds of men. 

The Panama Railroad is today what business men 



call a going concern. But it is run with a singular 
indifference to private methods of railroad manage- 
ment. It has a board of directors, but they do little 
directing. Its shares do not figure in Wall Street, 
and we do not hear of it floating loans, scaling down 
debts or engaging in any of the stock- jobbing opera- 
tions which in late years have resulted in railroad 
presidents being lawyers rather than railroad men. 
The United States government came into possession 
of a railroad and had to run it. Well? The govern- 
ment proved equal to the emergency and perhaps 
its experience will lead it to get possession of yet 
other railroads. 



CHAPTER III 



NOMBRE DE DIOS, PORTO BELLO AND SAN LORENZO 




ITHIN twenty miles, 
at the very most, 
east and west of 
Colon lie the chief 
existing memorials 
of the bygone days 
of Spanish discov- 
ery and coloniza- 
tion, and English 
adventurous raids 
and destruction, on 
the Isthmus. All 
that is picturesque 
and enthralling — 
that is to say, all. 
that is stirring, 
bloody, and lawless — in the history of the Caribbean 
shore of the Isthmus lies thus adjacent to the At- 
lantic entrance of the Canal. To the east are Nom- 
bre de Dios and Porto Bello — the oldest European 
settlements on the North American continent, the 
one being founded about 1510, almost a century 
and a half before the landing at Plymouth, and the 
other in 1607, the very year of the planting of James- 
town, Virginia. To the west is the castle of San 
Lorenzo at the mouth of the Chagres, the gateway 
to the Pacific trade, built in the latter years of the 
sixteenth century and repeatedly destroyed. About 
these Spanish outposts, once thriving market towns 
and massive fortresses, but now vine-covered ruins 
where "the lion and the lizard keep their court" 
clusters a wealth of historical lore. 

Let us for the time turn from the Panama of to- 
day, and from speculation as to its future, and look 
back upon the Panama of the past. It is a past too 
full of incident, too replete with stories of battle, 
murder and sudden death for full justice to be done 
to it in a chapter. Volumes, libraries almost, have 
been written about it, for Panama is not one of the 
happy countries without a history. Of that history 
the survey here is necessarily the most cursory. 



Twenty miles from Colon to the east is the spacious_ 
deep water harbor of Porto Bello, visited and named 
by Columbus in 1502. Earlier still it had harbored 
the ships of Roderigo de Bastides who landed there 
in 1500 — probably the first European to touch 
Panama soil. He sought the strait to the Indies, 
and gold as well. A few miles east and north of 
Porto Bello is Nombre de Dios, one of the earliest 
Spanish settlements but now a mere cluster of huts 
amidst which the Canal workers were only recently 
dredging sand for use in construction. Few visit 
Nombre de Dios for purposes of curiosity and 
indeed it is little worth visiting, for fires, floods 
and the shifting sands of the rivers have obliterated 
all trace of the old town. The native village con- 



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MODERN PORTO BELLO FROM ACROSS THE BAY 



45 



46 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



sisted of about 200 huts when the American invasion 
occurred, but a spark from one of the engines set 
off the dry thatch of one of the huts and a general 
conflagration ensued. The Americans have since 
repaired the damages, to the sanitary advantage 




TYPICAL NATIVE HUT IN PORTO BELLO DISTRICT 



of the place, but at heavy cost to its picturesque- 
ness. 

For that quality you must look to its past, for it 
figured- largely in the bloody life of the Isthmus in 
the 1 6th century. It was founded by one Don 



Diego de Nicuesa, who had held the high office of 
Royal Carver at Madrid. Tired of supervising the 
carving of meats for his sovereign he sailed for the 
Isthmus to carve out a fortune for himself. Hurri- 
canes, treachery, jealousy, hostile Indians, muti- 
nous sailors and all 
the ills that jolly 
mariners have to face 
had somewhat abated 
his jollity and his 
spirit as well when he 
rounded Manzanillo 
Point and finding him- 
self in a placid bay 
exclaimed: "Deten- 
gamonos aqiii, en 
nombre de Dios" 
(Let us stop here in 
the name of God). 
His crew, supersti- 
tious and pious as 
Spanish sailors were 
in those days, though 
piety seldom inter- 
fered with their pro- 
fanity or piracy, seized 
on the devout invoca- 
tion and Nombre de 
Dios became the name 
of the port. 

The town thus 
named became for a 
time the principal 
Spanish port on the 
Caribbean coast and 
one of the two termi- 
nals of the royal road 
to Old Panama. But 
the harbor was poor, 
the climate sickly, for 
the town was shut in 
on the landward side 
by mountains which 
excluded the breeze. 
It came to be called the Spanish Graveyard. Chil- 
dren died in infancy, and Spanish mothers sent 
theirs to Cruces to be reared. Difficult of defense 
by either land or sea it was menaced alternately 
by the Cimmaroons and the English, and in 1572 



THE HARBOR OF PORTO BELLO 



47 




Sir Francis Drake took it by assault but gained little 
profit by the adventure, in which he nearly lost 
his life. Warned by this, and by other attacks, a 
distinguished Spanish engineer was sent to examine 
Nombre de Dios with other Caribbean ports. 

He was impressed by Porto Bello and reported "if 
it might please your Majesty it were well that the 
city of Nombre de Dios be brought and builded in 
this harbor." It was so graciously ordered and the 
"city" having been "brought and builded" at 
Porto Bello its old site gradually relapsed into 
wilderness save for the few huts found when the 
American engineers descended upon it seeking not 
gold but sand. In the course of this quest they 
uncovered an old Spanish galleon but did not report 
any pieces of eight, ingots or doubloons. Indeed 
looking all over the Canal work we may well say, 
never was there so much digging for so little treasure, 
for even in the great Culebra cut no trace of precious 
metal was found. 




ENTRANCE TO PORTO BELLO HARBOR, FROM SPANISH FORT 

Nombre de Dios then affords little encouragement 
for the visits of tourists, but Porto Bello, nearer 
Colon, is well worth a visit. The visit however is 
not easily made. The trip by sea is twenty miles 
steaming in the open Caribbean which is always 
rough, and which on this passage seems to any save 
the most hardened navigators tempestuous beyond all 
other oceans. There are, or rather were, no regular 
lines of boats running from Colon and one desiring 
to visit the historic spot must needs plead with the 
Canal Commission for a pass on the government 
tug which makes the voyage daily. The visit is well 
worth the trouble however for the ruins are among 
the finest on the American continent, while the bay 
itself is a noble inlet. So at least Columbus thought 
it when he first visited it in 1502. His son, Fernando, 
who afterwards wrote of this fourth voyage of the 
Genoese navigator, tells of this visit thus: 




BULLOCK CART ON THE SAVANNA ROAD 



48 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




MODERN INDIAN, DARIEN REGION 
Note characteristic weapons — machete, javelin and shot 

"The Admiral without making any stay went on 
till he put into Puerto Bello, giving it that name 
because it is large, well peopled and encompassed 
by a well cultivated country. He entered the place 
on the 2nd of November (1502), passing between two 
small islands within which ships may lie close to the 
shore and turn it out (sic) if they have occasion. The 
country about the harbor, higher up, is not very 
rough but tilled and full of houses, a stone's throw 



or a bow shot one from the other; } 
and it looks like the finest landscape ! 
a man can imagine. During seven I 
days we continued there, on accoimt ! 
of the rain and ill weather, there 
came continually canoes from all 
the country about to trade, for pro- 
visions, and bottoms of fine spun 
cotton which they gave for some 
trifles such as points and pins." 

Time changes, and things and 
places change with it. What are 
"bottoms of fine spun cotton" and 
"trifles such as points"? As for 
the people whose houses then so 
plentifully besprinkled the landscape 
round about, they have largely van- 
ished. Slain in battle, murdered in 
cold blood, or enslaved and worked 
to death by the barbarous Spaniards, 
they have given place to a mongrel 
race mainly negro, and of them even 
there are not enough to give to 
Porto Bello today the cheery, well 
populated air which the younger 
Columbus noticed more than 400 
years ago. 

The real foundation date of Porto 
Bello is fixed at 1607, though prob- 
ably the moving thither of Nombre 
de Dios began earlier. Its full name 
in Spanish was San Felipe de Puerto- 
vello, for the pious Spaniards were 
hard put to it to name a city, a 
mountain, a cape or a carouse with- 
out bringing in a saint. Typically 
enough San Felipe was soon forgot- 
ten and the name became Puerto 
Bello or beautiful harbor. It grew 
rapidly, for, as already noted, the city of Nombre 
de Dios was reerected there. By 161 8 there 
were 130 houses in the main town not counting 
the suburbs, a cathedral, governor's house, 
kings' houses, a monastery, convent of mercy and 
hospital, a plaza and a quay. The main city was 
well-built, partly of stone or brick, but the subiu-bs, 
one of which was set aside for free negroes, were 
chiefly of wattled canes with palm thatch. A few 



-gun 



THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BALBOA 



49 



plantations and gardens bordered on the city, but 
mainly the green jungle came down to the verj^ edge 
as it does with Chagres, Cruces or other native 
towns today. 

It was the Atlantic port of entry for not Panama 
alone, but for the entire west coast of South America 
and for merchandise intended for the Philippines. 
Its great days were of course the times of the annual 
fairs which lasted from 40 to 60 days, but even at 
other times there were 40 vessels and numbers of 
flat boats occupied in the trade of 
the port. Yet it was but an outpost 
in the jungle after aU. No man 
alone dared tread the royal road 
from the city's gate after nightfall. 
In the streets snakes, toads and the 
ugly iguana, which the natives devour 
eagerly, were frequently to be seen. 
The native wild cat — called grandil- 
oquently a lion or a tiger — prowled 
in the suburbs and, besides carrying 
off fowls and pigs, sometimes attacked 
human beings. The climate was bet- 
ter than that of Nombre de Dios yet 
sufficiently unhealthful. Child-birth 
was so often fatal and the rearing of 
children attended with so much mor- 
tality that all mothers who were 
able resorted to Panama or Cruces 
at such a time. 

It was for a time a considerable 
market place and for the privilege of 
trading there the brokers paid into 
the public coffer 2,000 ducats a year. 
Another source of revenue was a 
tax of two reales on each head of 
cattle slaughtered in the shambles — 
a tax still retained in form in the 
Republic of Panama. He who 
brought in a negro slave had to pay 
two pesos for the privilege and from 
this impost a revenue of some $1,000 
a year was obtained, most of w^hich 
was used in cutting down the jungle 
and in maintaining roads. 

Before Porto Bello had even the 
beginnings of a town, before even the 
settlement at Nombre de Dios had 



been begun, there landed at the former port a 
Spaniard to whom the Isthmus gave immor- 
tality and a violent death — two gifts of fortune 
which not uncommonly go hand in hand. Vasco 
Nunez de Balboa was with Bastides in the visit 
which preceded that of Columbus. Thereby ho 
gained a knowledge of the coast and a taste for 
seafaring adventure. Having tried to be a planter 
at Santo Domingo and failed therein, he gave his 
creditors the slip by being carried in a barrel aboard 



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NATIVE FAMILY IN CHORRERA 



50 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



a ship about to explore the Panama coast under the 
Bachelor Encisco. Though they laughed at him 
for a time as "el hombre de casco" , "the man in a 
cask", his new companions in time came to accept 



while: "Here's gold, Spaniards! Here's gold. Take 
a plenty; drink it down! Here's more gold." 

Balboa was a pacifier as well as a fighter and it 
is recorded of him that even on the warpath he was 





















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SEVENTEENTH CENTURY RUIN AT PORTO BELLO 
This edifice, still well preserved, is believed to be the Casa Real, or Custom House 



his leadership and ultimately discarded that of 
Encisco, for besides gallantry Balboa possessed a 
genius for intrigue. Except for his great achieve- 
ment of the discovery of the Pacific, and his genius 
in making friends of the tribes he had subdued, 
Balboa's career does not differ greatly from that of 
, the leaders of other remorseless Spanish hordes who 
harried the hapless people of Central America, 
robbing, enslaving and murdering them with brutal 
indifference to their rights and totally callous to 
their sufferings. One can hardly read of the Span- 
iards in Central America and Peru without sym- 
pathizing somewhat with the Indian cacique who, 
having captured two of the marauders, fastened 
them to the ground, propped open their jaws and 
poiured molten gold down their throats saying the 



not unnecessarily brutal. Indeed one cacique whom 
he overthrew was so impressed with his forbearance 
that he entered into alliance with the Spaniard and 
gave him his favorite daughter. Though he never 
married the girl Balboa "always lov'd and cherish'd 
her very much' ' , according to Herrera, which is perhaps 
more than some wives get with a wedding ceremony. 

To anyone who has seen the Isthmian country 
as it is today, when the stateliest native house is 
but a hut, and when it would appear that the barest 
necessities of life are all that are sought by its people, 
the story told by Herrera, the official historian of 
the Spanish court, suggests a pitiful deterioration 
in the standard of native life. Of the home and 
village of Comagre, the greatest cacique of the 
Darien region, he writes: 



EARLY INDIAN LIFE IN PANAMA 



51 



"His palace was more remarkable and better built 
than any that had yet been seen either on the 
Islands, or the little that was known of the Conti- 
nent, being 150 paces in length and eighty in breadth 
... so beautifully wrought that the Spaniards 
were amaz'd at the sight of it and could not express 
the Manner and Curiosity of it. There were in it 
several Chambers and Apartments and one that was 
like a Buttery was full of such Provisions as the 
Country afforded, as Bread, Venison, Swine's Flesh, 
etc. There was another large Room like a Cellar 
full of earthen Vessels, containing Several sorts of 
white and red Liquors made of Indian Wheat, 
Roots, a kind of Palm-Tree and other Ingredients, 



drank. The blood they shed, the gold they stole, 
the houses they burned, the women they violated 
and the Indians they foully tortured and murdered 
form a long count in the indictment of civilization 
against Spain in Central America and the West 
Indies. That today the Spanish flag waves over not 
one foot of the territory ravaged by Pizarro, Nicuesa, 
Cortez, Balboa, and Pedrarias is but the slenderest 
of justice — the visitation upon the children of the 
sins of their fathers. It is fair to say that of all 
the ruffianly spoliators Vasco Nunez de Balboa was 
the least criminal. If he fought savagely to over- 
throw local caciques, he neither tortured, enslaved 
nor slew them after his victory, but rather strove 




Canai Commission Photo. 



STREET IN MODERN PORTO BELLO 



the which the Spaniards commended when they to make them his friends. He left the provinces 

dranlv them!" somewhat depleted of gold and pearls after his visits, 

How ingenuous the historian's closing line ! Doubt- but one of the evidences of the complete lack of the 

less the Spaniards commended as lavishly as they cultivating grace of civilization among the Indians 



52 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



was that they did not care so much for these gew- 
gaws as they did for their lives, the honor of their 
women and their liberty. This would of course 




ANCIENT TRAIL FROM PORTO BELLO 
Over this trail Balboa may have led his men on the march that led to the still unknowri Pacific 



stamp them as sheer barbarians on Fifth Avenue 
or the Rue de la Paix. 

As a matter of fact the Indian scorn of the Spanish 
greed for gold was the cause of Balboa's first hearing 
of the Pacific Ocean. He had made an alliance with 
Careta, a cacique of some power, who gave his 
daughter to Balboa, together with 70 slaves and 



about 4000 ounces of gold. As usual the Spaniards 
were quarreling over the plunder, when a son of 
the cacique, one Panciano, strode amongst them and, 

kicking the gold out 
of his way, addressed 
them in language thus 
reported by the his- 
torian Quintana: 

' ' Christians ! why 
quarrel and make so 
much turmoil about a 
little gold, which nev- 
ertheless you melt 
down from beautifully 
wrought work into 
rude bars? Is it for 
such a trifle that you 
banish yourselves from 
your country, cross the 
seas, endure hardships 
and disturb the peace- 
ful nations of these 
lands? Cease your 
unseemly brawl and I 
will show you a coun- 
try where you may 
obtain your fill of 
gold. Six days' march 
across yonder country 
will bring you to an 
ocean sea like this 
near which we dwell, 
where there are ships 
a little less in size 
than yours, with sails 
and oars, and where 
the people eat out of 
vessels of gold and 
have large cities and 
wealth unbounded." 
In the light of our 
later knowledge we know that he referred to the 
Pacific and to Peru. At the conclusion of his ad- 
dress he volunteered to lead the Spaniards to the 
unknown sea, provided they first would aid him 
and his father in the overthrow of a hostile tribe, 
and further that they increase their own numbers 
to 1000 men, for he foresaw hard fighting. 



THE FUTILE INDIAN UPRISING 



53 



To recuperate his force and add to it Balboa re- 
turned to his base at Santa Maria. Here he found 
trouble of divers kinds. Part of his men were 
mutinous. Letters from friends at Madrid told 
that his enemies there were conspiring for his un- 
doing — had even caused a new governor to be sent 
out to replace him, with orders to send him home for 
trial. But the most immediate danger was an 
Indian plot to raid and wholly obliterate the Spanish 
town — an enterprise which we can hardly blame the 
oppressed aborigines for cherishing. 

An Indian girl, whom a cavalier had first con- 
verted to Catholicism, then baptized and then taken 
for his mistress, revealed the plot to her lover. It 
had been told her by her brother who, knowing of 
the wrath to come, in the quaint language of Peter 
Martyr, "admonyshed her at the days appoynted 
by sume occasion to convey herselfe oute of the way 
leste shee shuld bee slayne in the confusion of 
bataile." Instead of doing this the faithless one, 
"forgettinge her parentes, her countrie and all her 



friendes, yea and all the kinges into whose throates 
Vaschus had thrust his sworde, she opened uppe the 
matter unto hym, and conceled none of those things 
which her undiscrete broother had declared unto 
her." 

Balboa was never accused of hesitation. The 
girl was forced to reveal her brother's hiding place. 
He was put to the torture and the information thus 
extorted enabled the Spaniards to strike at once and 
strike hard. With 1 50 men he went into the Indian 
territory of Darien, surprised the natives and put 
them to total rout. The almost invariable vic- 
tories of the Spaniards, except when they were taken 
by surprise, do not indicate superior valor on their 
part. To begin with they carried fire arms which 
affrighted the Indians as well as slaughtered them. 
Further, they wore partial armor — leather jerkins, 
helmets and cuirasses of steel — so that the unhappy 
aborigines were not only exposed to missiles, the 
nature of which they could not comprehend, but saw 
their own arrows and javelins fall useless from a 




Canal Commission Photo 



SPANISH FORT AT ENTRANCE TO PORTO BELLO HARBOR 



54 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



fairly struck target. In one battle the Indians were 
even reduced to meeting their foes with wooden 
swords, and, after the inevitable victory, one of the 
victors to further impress the vanquished with the 
futility of their defensive weapons ordered the fallen 
chief to stretch forth his right arm, and with one 
blow struck it off. 

The Indians were superstitious. Anything out of 
the ordinary filled them with dread. Many refused 
to stand and fight because Balboa rode into battle 
on a white horse. Some trained blood hounds that 
the Spaniards took into battle with them also terri- 
fied them. Doing battle with them in the open was 
almost like slaughtering sheep. Only in ambush 
were they formidable. 'It may be noted in passing 
that not all the barbarities were on the Spanish side. 
One of Balboa's most trusted lieutenants, Valdivia, 
was caught in a tempest and his ship wrecked. 
Those who escaped were captured by the natives, 
penned up and fattened for a cannibal feast. The 
day of festivity arriving Valdivia and four of his 
companions were conducted to the temple and there 
offered up a sacrifice. Their hearts were cut out 
with knives of obsidian and offered to the gods while 
their bodies were roasted and devoured by the savages. 




Photo, Prof. Otto Lutz 



A GROUP OF CHOLO INDIANS 



News from Madrid convinced Balboa that he was 
in disfavor at court. Some great exploit was 
needed to reestablish his prestige. He determined 
to seek without delay that new sea of which he had 
been told, and to this end gathered an army of 190 
Spaniards and about 1,000 Indians. A pack of the 
trained European war dogs were taken along. The 
old chroniclers tell singular tales about these dogs. 
Because of the terror they inspired among the 
Indians they were held more formidable than an 
equal number of soldiers. One great red dog with a 
black muzzle and extraordinary strength was en- 
dowed with the rank of a captain and drew the pay 
of his rank. In battle the brutes pursued the fleeing 
Indians and tore their naked bodies with their fangs. 
It is gravely reported that the Captain coiold dis- 
tinguish between a hostile and a friendly native. 

It is practically impossible to trace now the exact 
line followed by Balboa across the Isthmus. Visitors 
to the Canal Zone are shown Balboa Hill, named in 
honor of his achievement, from which under proper 
climatic conditions one can see both oceans. But 
it is wholly improbable that Balboa ever saw this 
hill. His route was farther to the eastward than the 
Zone. We do know however that he emerged from 

the jungle at 
some point on 
the Gulf of San 
Miguel. What 
or where the 
hill was from 
which with 
"eagle eyes he 
star'd at the 
Pacific" we 
can only guess. 
It was one of 
the elevations 
in the province 
of Quareque, 
and before at- 
taining it Bal- 
boa fought a 
battle with the 
Indians of 
that tribe who 
vastly outnum- 
bered his force, 



THE FIRST SIGHT OF THE PACIFIC 



55 



but were not armed to fight Spaniards. "Even as 
animals are cut up in the shambles," according to 
the account of Peter Martyr, "so our men, following 
them, hewed them in pieces ; from one an arm, from 
another a leg, here a buttock, there a shoulder." 
The chief Porque and 600 of his followers were slain 



brush under the glaring tropical sun of a September 
day. Pious chroniclers set down that he fell on his 
knees and gave thanks to his Creator — an act of 
devotion which coming so soon after his slaughter of 
the Quarequa Indians irresistibly recalls the witti- 
cism at the expense of the Pilgrim Fathers, that on 





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NATIVES GRINDING RICE IN A MORTAR OWNED BY ALL 
It never occurred to the Indians to let one man own the mortar and charge all others for its use 



and as usual dead and living were robbed of their 
golden jewelry. 

Balboa's force of Spaniards was now reduced to 
67 men ; the rest were laid up by illness, but notwith- 
standing the ghastly total of Indian lives taken, no 
Spaniard had been slain. With these he proceeded 
a day's journey, coming to a hill whence his native 
guides told him the sought-for sea might be seen. 
Ordering his men to stay at the base he ascended the 
hill alone, forcing his way through the dense under- 



landing they first fell upon their knees and then upon 
the aborigines. Whatever his spirit, Balboa never 
failed in the letter of piety. His band of cut-throats 
being summoned to the hilltop joined the official 
priest in chanting the "Te Deum Laudamus" and 
"Te Dominum confitur." Crosses were erected 
buttressed with stones which captive Indians, still 
dazed by the slaughter of their people, helped to 
heap. The names of all the Spaniards present were 
recorded. In fact few historic exploits of so early 



56 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



a day are so well authenticated as the details of 
Balboa's triumph. 

Descending the hill they proceeded with their 
march for they were then but half way to their goal. 
Once again they had to fight the jungle and its 
savage denizens. Later exploring parties, even in 




Photo T. J. Man,,, 



FAMILY TRAVEL ON THE PANAMA TRAIL 



our own day, have found the jungle alone invincible. 
Steel, gunpowder and the bloodhounds opened the 
way, and the march continued while the burden of 
gold increased daily. It is curious to read of the 
complete effrontery with which these land pirates 
commandeered all the gold there was in sight. 
From Comagre .were received 4000 ounces — "a 



gift"; from Panca, ten pounds; Chiapes disgorged 
500 pounds to purchase favor; from Cocura 650 
pesos worth of the yellow metal and from Tumaco 
640 pesos besides two basins full of pearls of which 
240 were of extraordinary size. The names of these 
dead and gone Indian chiefs signify nothing today, 
but this partial list of contributions shows that as a 
collector Balboa was as efficient as the Wiskinkie of 
Tammany Hall. Not counting pearls and girls 
— of both of which commodities large store was 
gathered up — the spoil of the expedition ex- 
ceeded 40,000 pesos in 
value. 

It was September 29, 
1 513, that at last 
Balboa and his men 
reached the Pacific. 
Being St. Michael's day 
they named the inlet 
of the sea they had 
attained the Gulf of 
St. Michael. On their 
first arrival they found 
they had reached the 
• sea, but not the water, 

for the tide which at 
that point rises and 
falls twenty feet, was out and a 
mile or more of muddy beach in- 
terspersed with boulders intervened 
between them and the water's edge. 
So they sat down until the tide had 
returned when Balboa waded in 
thigh deep and claimed land and 
sea, all its islands and its bounda- 
ries for the King of Spain. After 
having thus performed the needful 
theatrical ceremonies, he returned 
to the practical by leading his men 
to the slaughter of some neighbor- 
ing Indians whose gold went to 
swell the growing hoard. 

The Spaniards made their way along the Pacific 
coast to a point that must have been near the pres- 
ent site of Panama City, for it is recorded that on a 
clear day they could see the Pearl Islands in the 
offing. Balboa wanted mightily to raid these 
islands, but felt it more prudent to hasten back to 



THE BEGINNING OF BALBOA'S DOWNFALL 



57 



the Atlantic coast and send reports of his discovery 
and tribute of his gold to the King before his 
enemies should wholly undo him. So he made his 
way back, fighting and plundering new tribes all 
the way and leaving the natives seemingly cowed, 
but actually full of hatred. They had learned the 
folly of standing against the white man's arms. 



rainy season he had marched 190 men through the 
unknown jungle, fighting pitched battles almost 
every day, taking food and drink where he could 
find it or going without, and finally brought all 
back without losing a man. No expedition since, 
even the peaceful scientific or surveying ones of our 
own days, has equaled this record. He had left 




DESERTED NATIVE HUT 
Note the profusion of pineapples growing wild, without further attention tliey will thrive and multiply 



"Who that had any brains," asked one chieftain 
touching Balboa's sword, "would contend against 
this macana which at one blow can cleave a man in 
two?" 

The return was made to Antigua where Balboa 
was received with loud acclaim. Indeed he had 
accomplished the incredible. Not only had he dis- 
covered a new ocean, not only had he brought home 
booty worth a dukedom, but in the height of the 



the Indians pacified, if resentful, and the letter 
which he sent off to King Ferdinand was a modest 
report of a most notable achievement. "In all his 
long letter," says Peter Martyr, "there is not a 
single leaf written which does not contain thanks to 
Almighty God for deliverance from perils and 
preservation from many imminent dangers." 

But Vasco Nunez de Balboa now' approached the 
unhappy and undeserved close of a glorious career. 



S8 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



As his letter went slowly across the seas in a clumsy 
galleon to Spain, one Pedrarias with a commission 
to govern Balboa's province and to deal out sum- 
mary justice to Balboa, who had been represented 
to the King as a treacherous villain, was on the 
Atlantic making for the New World. When Fer- 
dinand received Balboa's 
letter he would have 
given much to recall his 
liasty commission to 
Pedrarias, but there was 
no wireless in those days, 
and the new governor, 
with power of life and 
•death over Balboa, was 
now well out at sea. 

The blow did not fall 
at once. On arrival at 
Santa Maria de la An- 
tigua in June, 15 14, 
Pedrarias sent a courier 
to Balboa to announce 
his coming and his au- 
thority. The devoted 
followers of Vasco Nunez 
were for resisting the 
latter, assuring him that 
the King could not have 
received the report of his 
notable discovery, else 
he would not thus have 
been supplanted. Bal- 
boa however submitted 
gracefully, promising the 
newcomer implicit obedi- 
ence. Pedrarias, though 
charged to try Balboa 
for treason, concealed 
his orders until he had 
gathered all the useful 

information that the old chieftain could impart and 
won many of his followers to his own personal sup- 
port. Then he arrested Balboa and put him on trial, 
only to have him triumphantly acquitted. Pedra- 
rias was disgusted. He hated Balboa and feared 
his influence in the colony. For his own part he 
was tearing down the little kingdom his predecessor 
had erected. 




WHAT THEY STILL CALL A ROAD IN PANAMA 



Balboa had fought the Indian tribes to their 
knees, then placated them, freed them without 
torture and made them his allies. Pedrarias ap- 
plied the methods of the slave trader to the native 
population. Never was such misery heaped upon 
an almost helpless foe, save when later his apt pupil 

Pizarro invaded Peru. 
The natives were mur- 
dered, enslaved, robbed, 
starved. As Bancroft 
says, "in addition to 
gold there were always 
women for baptism, lust 
and slavery." The whole 
Isthmus blazed with war, 
and where Balboa had 
conquered without losing 
a man Pedrarias lost 70 
^in one campaign. One 
of these raids was into 
the territory now known 
as the Canal Zone. On 
one raid Balboa com- 
plained to the King there 
"was perpetrated the 
greatest cruelty ever 
heard of in Arabian or 
Christian country in any 
generation. And it is 
this. The captain and 
the surviving Christians, 
while on this journey, 
took nearly 1 00 Indians 
of both sexes, mostly 
women and children, fas- 
tened them with chains 
and afterwards ordered 
them to be decapitated 
and scalped." 

Ill feeling rapidly in- 
creased between Pedrarias and Balboa. The 
former with the jealousy and timidity of an 
old man continually suspected Balboa of plot- 
ting against him. His suspicion was not allayed 
when royal orders arrived from Spain creating Balboa 
adelantado and governor of the newly discovered 
Pacific coast. The title sounded well but he would 
have to fight to establish his government over the 



THE TRAITOR IN BALBOA'S CAMP 



59 



Indians and even then Pedrarias would be his 
superior. But he determined to make the effort, 
though with the whole Isthmus in war-paint because 
of the cruelties of Pedrarias he would have to fight 
every inch of his way. Moreover he tried to carry 
across the isthmus the hulls of four brigantines, 
constructed on the Atlantic coast and designed to be 
put together on the Pacific. Just why he attempted 
this exploit is perplexing, for there were as good timber 
and better harbors for shipyards on the Pacific side. 
Nearly 2000 Indian lives were sacrificed in the 
heart-rending task of carrying these heavy burdens 
through the jungle, and when the task was ended 
it was found that the timbers of two of the ships were 
useless, having been honeycombed by worms. Two 
however were seaworthy and with them he put 
forth into the Pacific, but a great 
school of whales encountered near the 
Pearl Islands, where even today they 
are frequently seen, affrighted his men 
who made him turn back. 

In his party was a man who 
had fallen in love with Balboa's 
beautiful mistress, the 
daughter of the 



Indian cacique Careta. She had been annoyed by 
his advances and complained to Vasco Nunez, who 
warned the man to desist, accompanying the warning 
with remarks natural to the situation. This man 
overheard a conversation, really concerning some 
pitch and iron for the ships but which might be dis- 
torted to convey the impression that Balboa was 
plotting the overthrow of Pedrarias. By an un- 
lucky chance the eavesdropper was chosen as 
one of a party to carry dispatches to Pedrarias, 
and had no sooner reached the presence of that 
bloodthirsty old conquistadore than he denounced 
Balboa as a traitor. Moreover he roused the 
old man's vanity by telling him that Balboa was 
so infatuated with his mistress that he would 
never marry the governor's daughter — a marriage 




OUTDOOR LIFE OF THE NATIVES 
The tree is a mango so loaded with fruit that the boughs droop. The fruit is seldom liked by others than natives 



6o 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



which had been arranged and announced as an 
affair of state. 

In a rage Pedrarias determined to put an end to 
Balboa. Accordingly he wrote a pleasant letter, 
beseeching him to come to Santa Maria for a con- 
ference. That Balboa came willingly is evidence 
enough that he had no guilty knowledge of any plot. 
Before he reached his destination however he was 
met by Pizarro with an armed guard who arrested 
him. No word of his could change the prearranged 



name more than any other man''s deserves to be 
linked with that of Columbus in the history of the 
Isthmus of Panama. It was in 151 7, and Balboa 
was but forty-two years old. 

Had the bungling and cruel Pedrarias never been 
sent to the Isthmus that part of the country known 
as the Darien might by now be as civilized as the 
Chiriqui province. As it was, the thriving settle- 
ments of Ada and Antigua languished and disap- 
peared, and the legacy of hatred left by the Indians 




NATIVE HUT AND OPEN-AIR KITCHEN 



program. He was tried but even the servile court 
which convicted him recommended mercy, which 
the malignant Pedrarias refused. Straightway, 
upon the verdict the great explorer, with four of his 
men condemned with him, was marched to the 
scaffold in the Plaza, where stood the block. In a 
neighboring hut, pulling apart the wattled canes of 
which it was built that he might peer out while 
himself unseen Pedrarias gloated at the sight of the 
blood of the man whom he hated with the insane 
hatred of a base and malignant soul. There the 
heads of the four were stricken off, and with the 
stroke died Vasco Nunez de Balboa, the man whose 



of that day is so persistent that the white man has 
never been able to establish himself on the eastern 
end of the Isthmus. 

Fate has dealt harshly with the memory of Balboa. 
Keats, in his best known and most quoted sonnet, 
gives credit for his discovery to Cortez. Local 
tradition has bestowed his name on a hill he never 
saw, and Panamanian financial legislation has given 
his name to a coin which is never coined — existing as 
a fictitious unit like our mill. He did not himself 
realize the vastness of his discovery, and gave the 
misleading name of the South Sea to what was the 
Pacific Ocean. But time is making its amends. 



THE CHARACTER OF VASCO NUNEZ DE BALBOA 



6i 




COCOANUT GROVE ON THE CARIBBEAN COAST 



something of a glamoiar about 
the person of the victim, 
so that unconsciously we tend 
to emphasize his merits while 
we touch lightly upon his 
faults. But after all, this 
effect is no more than that 
which his personality wrought 
upon the minds of contem- 
porary witnesses, who were 
unanimous in their expressions 
of esteem for Balboa, and of 
condemnation for the manner 
of his taking off." 

And finally the United States 
government has acted wisely 
and justly when in decreeing 
a great port, lined with mas- 
History will accord with the verdict of John Fiske sive docks, the stopping place for all the argosies 
who said of him : of trade entering or leaving the Canal at its Pacific 

"Thus perished in the forty-second year of his end, they conferred upon it the name Balboa. It 
age the man who, but for that trifle of iron and wUl stand a fitting monument to the great soldier 
pitch, would probably have been the conqueror of and explorer whose murder affected for the worse 
Peru. It was a pity that such work should not all Central America and Peru, 
have fallen into his 
hands, for when at 
length it was done, it 
was by men far inferior 
to him in character and 
caliber. One cannot 
but wish that he 
might have gone on 
his way like Cortez, 
and worked out the 
rest of his contem- 
plated career in ac- 
cordance with the 
genius that was in 
him. That bright 
attractive figure and 
its sad fate can never 
fail to arrest the at- 
tention and detain the 
steps of the historian 
as he passes by. Quite 
possibly the romantic 
character of the story 
may have thrown canal commission stone crusher, porto bello 




Ramsay, Photo 



62 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




NATIVE HUTS NEAR PORTO BELLO 
The Indians of this region are fishermen and famous navigators. They ship on vessels leaving Colon for far distant ports 



But to return to Porto Bello. Balboa's own asso- 
ciation with that settlement was of the very briefest, 
but the influence of his discovery was to it all im- 
portant. For the discovery of the Pacific led to 
the conquest of Peru under Pizarro, the founding of 
Old Panama and the development at Porto Bello 
of the port through which all the wealth wrung 
from that hapless land of the Incas found its At- 
lantic outlet. 

The story of Old Panama may be reserved for a 
later chapter, 
even though 
the rise and 
fall of both 
Nombre de 
Dios and 
Porto Bello 
were chiefly 
dependent up- 
on the chief 
Spanish city 
of the Pacific 
coast. For 
great as was 
the store of 
gold, silver 
and jewels 




AN INDIAN FAMILY UF THE DARIEN 



torn from the Isthmian Indians and sent from 
these Spanish ports back to Spain, it was a mere 
rivulet compared to the flood of gold that poured 
through the narrow trails across the Isthmus 
after Pizarro began his ravishment of Peru. With 
the conquest of the Land of the Incas, and the 
plunder thereof that made of the Isthmus a mighty 
treasure house attracting all the vampires and vul- 
tures of a predatory day, we have little to do here. 
Enough to point out that all that was extorted 

from the Peru- 
vians was sent 
by ship to 
Panama and 
thence by 
mule carriage 
either across 
the trail to 
Nombre de 
Dios or Porto 
Bello, or else 
by land car- 
riage to some 
point on the 
Chagres River, 
usually Venta 
Cruces, and 



PANAMA A LINK IN PHILIPPINE TfL^DE 



65 



thence by the river to San Lorenzo and down the 
coast to Porto Bello. Nor did the mules return 
with empty packs. The Peruvians bought from 
the bandits who robbed them, and goods were 
brought from Spain to be shipped from Panama 
to South America and even to the PhiHppines. 



perts" of whom we are hearing so much these days, 
it might be worth while to add some experts in 
enterprise. 

As this Spanish trade increased the corsairs or 
buccaneers sprung into being — plain pirates, who 
preyed on Spanish commerce alone, finding excuse 




Photo by Underwood and Underwood 



RUINED SPANISH FORT AT PORTO BELLO 
Now used as an American cemetery. The site is one of infinite beauty, but the cemetery is neglected 



It seems odd to us today with "the Philippine 
problem" engaging political attention, and with 
American merchants hoping that the canal may 
stimulate a profitable Philippine trade, that three 
hundred years ago Spanish merchants found profit 
in sending goods by galleons to Porto Bello, by 
mule-pack across the Isthmus and by sailing vessel 
again to Manila. Perhaps to the "efficiency ex- 



in the fact that the Spanish were Catholics, or in 
the plea that Spain had no right to monopo- 
lize American trade. The excuses were mere 
subterfuges, but served in a day when piracy was 
winked at. The men offering them were not ani- 
mated by religious convictions, nor would they have 
engaged in the American trade if permitted. For 
them the more exciting and profitable pursuit of 



64 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 






% 




Photo by Undencood and Underwood 

SAN BLAS LUGGERS AT ANCHOR 

piracy, and this they pushed with such vigor that 
by 1526 the merchant vessels in the trade would sail 
together in one fleet guarded by men-of-war. At 
times these fleets numbered as many as forty sail, 
all carrying guns. The system of trade — all regu- 
lated by royal decree — was for the ships to sail for 
Cartagena on the coast of Colombia, a voyage 
occupying usually about two months. Arrived 
there, a courier was sent to Porto Bello and on to 
Panama with tidings of the approach of the fleet. 
Other couriers spread the tidings throughout the 
northern provinces of South America. 

The fleet would commonly stay at Cartagena a 
month, though local merchants often bribed the 
general in command to delay it longer. For with 
the arrival of the ships the town awoke to a brief 
.and delirious period of trading. Merchants flocked 
■to Cartagena with indigo, tobacco and cocoa from 
Venezuela, gold and emeralds from New Granada, 
■pearls from Margarita and products of divers sorts 

i^om the neighboring lands. While this business 

4 



was in progress, and the newly laden galleons were 
creeping along the coast to Nombre de Dios and 
Porto Bello, word had been sent to Lirna for the 
plate fleet to come to Panama bearing the tribute 
to the King — gold stripped from the walls of tem- 
ples, pearls pried from the eyes of sacred images, 
ornaments wrested from the arms and necks of 
native women by a rude and ribald soldiery. With 
the plate fleet came also numerous vessels taking 
advantage of the convoy, though indeed there was 
little danger from pirates on the Pacific. The At- 
lantic, being nearer European civilization, swarmed 
with these gentry. 

At Panama all was transferred to mules and started 
for the Atlantic coast. So great was the volume 
of treasure and of goods to be transported that the 
narrow trail along which the mules proceeded in 
single file, usually 
100 in a caravan 
or train, was oc- 
cupied almost 
from one end to 
the other, and the 
tinkling of the 
mule-bells, and 




THE TEETH OF THE TROPICS 
Skeletonized jaws of a Bayano river crocodile 



FLUSH TIMES IN PORTO BELLO 



6.S 




NATIVE UKLUijL UN JUL DARiLN 



the cries of the muleteers were seldom stilled. Indians 
sometimes raided the trail and cut out a loaded mule 
or two, and the buccaneers at one time, finding rob- 
bery by sea monotonous, landed and won rich booty 
by raiding a treasure caravan. The bulkier articles 
of commerce were packed in carts at Panama and 
sent to Venta Cruz where they were transferred 
to flat boats, and taken down the river to San 
Lorenzo and thence to Porto Bello by sea. When 
the galleons had cast anchor at that port, and the 
merchants and caravans were all arrived the little 
town took on an air of bustle and excitement as- 
tonishing to the visitor who had seen it in the hours 
of its normal life. 

"The spectator," says Alcedo, "who had just 
before been considering Porto Bello in a poor, un- 
peopled state, without a ship in the port and breath- 



ing nothing but misery and wretchedness, would 
remain thunderstruck at beholding the strange 
alteration which takes place at the time of this 
fair. Now he would see the houses crowded with 
people, the square and the streets crammed with 
chests of gold and silver, and the port covered with 
vessels; some of these having brought by the river 
Chagres from Panama the effects of Peru, such as 
cacao, bark (quina), vicuna wool, bezoar stone, and 
other productions of these provinces. He would see 
others bringing provisions from Cartagena; and he 
would reflect that, however detestable might be its 
climate, this city was the emporium of the riches 
of the two worlds, and the most considerable com- 
mercial depot that was ever known." 

The visitor to Porto Bello today may see still 
standing the long stone fagade of the aduana, or 



66 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



custom house, facing the ancient plaza. In that 
square the merchants erected cane booths and 
tents made of sails, while all available space was 
filled with bales of goods drawn thither on sledges. 
With the fleet came 5000 or 6000 soldiers, who 
besides the sailors needful to man the vessels, the 
merchants and their clerks, 
the porters, the buyers of 
all nationalities and the 
native sightseers crowded 
the little town of a few 
hundred houses so that it 
appeared to be in posses- 
sion of a mob. 

An itinerant preacher, 
Thomas Gage, who has 
left some entertaining rem- 
iniscences of his experi- 
ences on the Isthmus, tells 
quaintly of seeking lodg- 
ings during the fair: 

"When I came into the 
Haven I was sorry to see 
that as yet the Galeons 
were not come from Spaine, 
knowing that the longer I 
stayed in that place, the 
greater would be my 
charges. Yet I comforted 
myselfe that the time of 
year was come, and that 
they could not long delay 
their coming. My first 
thoughts were of taking 
up a lodging, which at that 
time were plentiful! and 
cheape, nay some were of- 
fered me for nothing with 
this caveat, that when the 
Galeons did come, I must 
either leave them, or pay a dear rate for them. A 
kind Gentleman, who was the Kings Treasurer, fall- 
ing in discourse with me, promised to help me, that 
I might be cheaply lodged even when the ships came, 
and lodgings were at the highest rate. He, inter- 
posing his authority, went with me to seeke one, which 
at the time of the fleets being there, might continue 
to be mine. It was no bigger than would containe 




Copyright. 1913, National Gtonrap/ilc Magazine, Wastilngloii, D. C. 
Photo by Henry Fittier 

CHOCO INDIAN GIRLS 

Note the toes. With them they pick up the smallest objects 



a bed, a table, a stoole or two, with roome enough 
beside to open and shut the doore, and they de- 
manded of me for it during the aforesaid time of 
the fleet, sixscore Crownes, which commonly is a 
fortnight. For the Towne being little, and the 
Soldiers, that come with the Galeons for their 

defence at least four or 
five thousand ; besides mer- 
chants from Peru, from 
Spain and many other 
places to buy and sell, is 
causes that every roome 
though never so small, be 
dear; and sometimes all 
the lodgings in the Towne 
are few enough for so many 
people, which at that time 
doe meet at Portobel. I 
knew a Merchant who 
gave a thousand Crownes 
for a shop of reasonable 
bignesse, to sell his wares 
and commodities that yeer 
I was there, for fifteen dales 
only, which the Fleet con- 
tinued to be in that Haven. 
I thought it much for 
me to give the sixscore 
Crownes which were de- 
manded of me for a room, 
which was but as a mouse 
hole, and began to be 
troubled, and told the 
Kings Treasurer that I had 
been lately robbed at sea, 
and was not able to give 
so much, and bee besides 
at charges for my diet, 
which I feared would prove 
as much more. But not a 
farthing would be abated of what was asked; 
where upon the good Treasurer, pitying me, offered 
to the man of the house to pay him threescore 
Crownes of it, if so be that I was able to 
pay the rest, which I must doe, or else lie with- 
out in the street. Yet till the Fleet did come I 
would not enter into this deare hole, but accepted 
of another faire lodging which was offered me for 



THE AUDACIOUS RAID OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 



67 



nothing. Whilst I thus expected the Fleets coming, 
some money and offerings I got for Masses, and for 
two Sermons which I preached at fifteen Crownes 
a peece. I visited the Castles, which indeed seemed 
unto me to be very strong; but what most I won- 
dered at was to see the requa's of Mules which 
came thiether from Panama, laden with wedges of 
silver; in one day I told two hundred mules laden 
with nothing else, which were unladen in the pub- 
licke Market-place, so that there the heapes of 
silver wedges lay like heapes of stones in the street, 
without any feare or suspition of being lost. Within 
ten dales the fleet came, consisting of eight Galeons 
and ten Merchant ships, which forced me to run 
to my hole. It was a wonder then to see the mul- 
titude of people in those streets which the weeke 
before had been empty. 

"Then began the price of all things to rise, a fowl 
to be worth twelve Rialls, which in the mainland 
within I had often bought for one; a pound of beefe 
then was worth two Rialls, 
whereas I had in other places 
thirteen pounds for half a 
Riall, and so of all other 
food and provisions, 
which was so excessively 
dear, that I knew not 
how to live but by 
fish and Tortoises, 




which were very many, and though somewhat deare, 
yet were the cheapest meat I could eate." 

On this annual fair, and on trade with the back 
country, both Nombre de Dios and Porto Belle 
waxed prosperous and luxurious. Prosperity was a 
dangerous quality for a town or a man to exhibit 
in those days when monarchs set the example of 
theft and extortion, and private plunderers were 
quick to follow it. So Nombre de Dios was early 
made the point of an audacious raid by Sir Francis 
Drake. Though Drake was a bold adventurer, he 
is given a measure of immortaUty by a statue in 
Baden, the inscription on which celebrates him as 
the introducer of potatoes into Europe. But per- 
sonal profit, not potatoes, had his chief attention, 
though as a side issue he engaged in the slave trade. 
July 29, 1572, he made a descent upon Nombre de 
Dios with 73 men armed, according to a writer of 
the time, with "6 Targets; 6 Fire Pikes; 12 Pikes; 
24 Muskets and Callivers; 16 Bowes and 6 Barti- 
zans; 2 Drums and 2 Trumpets." His men landed 
from pinnaces and after encountering "a jolly hot 
volley of shot" in the plaza put the Spaniards 
to flight. At the point of a sword a captive 
was forced to lead the raiders to the Gov- 
ernor's house where to his joy Drake dis- 
covered a stack of silver ingots worth a 
million pounds sterling. But 'twas an 
embarrassment of riches, for the bars 




INDIAN HUTS NEAR PORTO BELLO 



68 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



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COUNTRY BACK OP PORTO BELLO 



were of 40 pounds weight each and therefore hard 
to move, SO Drake sought the King's Treasure House 
where he hoped to find more movable wealth. As 
the door was being broken down he fainted from 
loss of blood, and as he lay speechless on the sill 
the Spaniards rallied and attacked the invaders. 
Though Drake reviving sought to hold his men up 
to the fight, they had lost their dash, and despite his 
protestations carried him bodily to the boats. The 
men were wiser than their leader because it was the 
chance arrival of some 
soldiers from Panama 
that had rallied the 
populace of the town, 
and the English, de- 
prived of Drake's lead- 
ership, would certainly 
have been over- 
whelmed. That leader 
however grieved sin- 
cerely when a Spanish 
spy told him later that 
there were 360 tons of 
silver in the town and 
many chests of gold 
in the treasure house. 
With his appetite 
whetted for treasure 
Drake retired to plan 



a more profitable raid. 
This was to be nothing 
less than a land expe- 
dition to cut off one 
of the treasure cara- 
vans just outside of 
old Panama on its way 
down the Nombre de 
Dios trail. Had the 
Indian population 
been as hostile to the 
English then as they 
became in later days 
this would have been 
a more perilous task. 
But at this time the 
men who lurked in the 
jungles, or hunted on 
the broad savannas 
had one beast of prey they feared and hated more 
than the lion or the boa — the Spaniard. Whether In- 
dian or Cimmaroon — as the escaped slaves were called 
— every man out in that tropic wilderness had some 
good ground for hating the Spaniards, and so when 
Drake and his men came, professing themselves ene- 
mies of the Spaniards likewise, the country folk 
made no war upon them but aided them to creep 
down almost within sight of Panama. Halting here, 
at a point which must have been well within the 




NATIVE WOMEN OF THE SAVANNAS BEARING BURDENS 



THE FUTILE ATTACK ON THE TREASURE TRAIN 



69 



Canal Zone and which it seems probable was near 
the spot where the Pedro Miguel locks now rise, they 
sent a spy into the town who soon brought back 
information as to the time when the first mule-train 
would come out. 

All seemed easy then. Most of the travel across 
the isthmus was by night to avoid the heat of the 
day. Drake disposed his men by the side of the 
trail — two In- 
dians or Cim- 
maroons to 
each armored 
Englishman. 
The latter had 
put their shirts 
on outside of 
their breast- 
plates so that 
they might be 
told in the 
dark by the 
white cloth — 
for the ancient 
chroniclers 
would have us 
believe them 
pun c tilious 
about their 
latmdry work. 
AH were to lie 
silent in the 
jungle until 
the train had 
passed, then 
closing in be- 
hind cut off all 

retreat to Panama — when ho! for the fat panniers 
crammed with gold and precious stones! 

The plan was simplicity itself and was defeated 
by an equally simple mischance. The drinks of the 
Isthmus which, as we have seen, the Spaniards 
commended mightily when they drank, were treach- 
erous in their workings upon the human mind — a 
quality which has not passed away with the bucca- 
neers and cimmaroons, but still persists. One of 
Drake's jolly cutthroats, being over fortified with 
native rum for his nocturnal vigil, heard the tinkle 
of mtde bells and rose to his feet. The leading 



muleteer turned his animal and fled, crying to the 
saints to protect him from the sheeted specter in 
the path. The captain in charge of the caravan was 
dubious about ghosts, but, there being a number of 
mules loaded with grain at hand, concluded to send 
them on to see if there were anything about the 
ghosts which a proper prayer to the saint of the 
day would exorcise. So the Englishmen again 




CAMINA EEALE, OR ROYAL ROAD NEAR PORTO BELLO 



heard the tinkling mule bells, waited this time in 
low breathing silence to let the rich prize pass, 
then with shouts of triumph dashed from the jimgle, 
cut down or shot the luckless muleteers, and swarmed 
about the caravan eager to cut the bags and get at 
the booty — and were rewarded with sundry bushels 
of grain intended to feed the crowds at Nombre 
de Dios. 

The disaster was irreparable. The true treasure 
train at the first uproar had fled back to the walls 
of Panama. Nothing was left to Drake' and his 
men but to plod back empty handed to Cruces, 



70 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




A LADY OF THE SAVANNA 



where they had left 
their boats. Of 
course they raided 
the town before 
leaving but the sea- 
son was off and the 
warehouses barren. 
Back they went to 
the coast and- re- 
lieved their feelings 
by ransacking a few 
coastwise towns and 
hurling taunts at the 
governor of Carta- 
gena. Shortly there- 
after they renewed 
their enterprise and 
did this time capture 
the treasure train, 
getting perhaps $100,000 worth of plunder, with 
but little loss. Some French pirates under Captain 
Tetu, who had joined in the adventure, suffered 
more severely and their captain, wounded and 
abandoned in the forest, was put to death by the 
Spaniards with certain of their favorite methods of 
torture. 

After a time in England Drake returned to the 
Caribbean with a considerable naval force, harried 
the coast, burned and sacked some towns, including 
Nombre de Dios, and obtained heavy ransom from 
others. He put into the harbor of Porto Bello, with 
the intent of taking it also, but while hesitating 
before the formidable fortresses of the place was 
struck down by death. His body, encased in lead, 
was sunk in the bay near perhaps to the ancient 
ships which our dredges have brought to light. 
The English long revered him as a great sailor and 
commander, which he was, though a reckless ad- 
venturer. His most permanent influence on the 
history of the Isthmus was his demonstration that 
Nombre de Dios was incapable of defense, and its 
consequent disappearance from the map. 

Such greatness as had pertained to Nombre de 
Dios was soon assumed by Porto Bello, which soon 
grew far beyond the size attained by its predecessor. 
It became indeed a substantially built town, and its 
fortresses on the towering heights on either side of 
the beautiful bay seemed fit to repel any invader — 



notwithstanding which the town was repeatedly 
taken by the English. Even today the ruins of 
town and forts are impressive, more so than any 
ruins readily accessible on the continent, though to 
see them at their best you must be there when the 
jungle has been newly cut away, else all is lost in a 
canopy of green. Across the bay from the town, 
about a mile and a half, stand still the remnants 
of the "Iron Castle" on a towering bluff. Castle 
Gloria and Fort Geronimo. These defensive works 
were built of stone, cut from reefs under the water 
found all along the coast. Almost as light as pumice 
stone and soft and easily worked when first cut, 
this stone hardens on exposure so that it will stop 
a ball without splitting or chipping. When Admiral 
Vernon, of the British navy, had captured the town 
in 1739, he tried to demolish the fort and found 
trouble enough. "The walls of the lower battery," 
he recorded, "consisting of 22 guns, were nine foot 
thick and of a hard stone cemented with such fine 




NATIVE CHILDREN, PANAMA PROVINCE 



THE APPEARANCE OF MORGAN THE BUCCANEER 



71 



mortar that it was a long work to make any im- 
pression in it, to come to mine at all, so that the 
blowing up took sixteen or eighteen days." Even 
today the relics of the Iron Fort present an air of 
bygone power and the rusty cannon still lying by 
the embrasures bring back vividly the days of the 
buccaneers. 

Inheriting the greatness and prosperity of Nombre 
de Dios, Porto Bello inherited also its unpleasant 
prominence as a target for the sea rover. French 
filibusters and various buccaneers raided it at their 
fancy, while the black Cimmaroons of the mainland 
lay in wait for caravans entering or leaving its gates. 
To describe, or even to enumerate, all the raids 
upon the town would be wearisome to the reader. 
Most savage, however, of the pests that attacked 
the place was Sir Henry Morgan, the 
Welsh buccaneer, whose ex- 



come or go from Spain; by reason of the unhealthi- 
ness of the air, occasioned by certain vapors that 
exhale from the mountains. Notwithstanding their 
chief warehouses are at Porto Bello, howbeit their 
habitations be all the year long at Panama; whence 
they bring the plate upon mules at such times as 
the fair begins, and when the ships, belonging to 
the Company of Negroes, arrive here to sell slaves." 
Morgan's expedition consisted of nine ships and 
about 460 men, nearly all British — too small a force 
to venture against such a stronghold. But the 
intrepid commander would listen to no opposition. 
His ships he anchored near 
Manzanillo Island where 
now stands Colon. Thence 
by small boats he con- 




BULL-RIDER AND NATIVE CAR AT BOUQUETTE, CHIRIQUI 



ploits are so fully and admiringly related by 
Esquemeling that we may follow his narrative, 
both of the sack of Porto Bello, and the later de- 
struction of the Castle of San Lorenzo. 

It was in 1668 that Morgan made his first attack 
upon Porto Bello. "Here," wrote Esquemeling, 
"are the castles, almost inexpugnable, that defend 
the city, being situated at the entry of the port ; so 
that no ship or boat can pass without permission. 
The garrison consists of three hundred soldiers, and 
the town is constantly inhabited by four hundred 
families, more or less. The merchants dwell not 
here, but only reside for awhile, when the galleons 



veyed all save a few of his men to a point near 
the landward side of the town, for he feared to 
attack by sea because of the great strength of the 
forts. Having taken the Castle of Triana he resolved 
to shock and horrify the inliabitants of the town 
by a deed of cold-blooded and wholesale murder, 
and accordingly drove all the defenders into a 
single part of the castle and with a great charge 
of gunpowder demolished it and them together. If 
horrified, the Spaniards were not terrified, but con- 
tinued bravely the defense of the works they still 
held. For a time the issue of the battle looked dark 
for Morgan, when to his callous and brutal mind 



72 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




THE INDIANS CALL^ HER A WITCH 

being finished, he commanded all the 
and women whom he had taken 
prisoners to fix them against the walls 
of the castle. Thus much he had 
beforehand threatened the governor to 
perform, in case he delivered not the 
castle. But his answer was: 'I will 
never surrender myself alive.' Cap- 
tain Morgan was much persuaded 
that the governor would not employ 
his utmost forces, seeing religious 
women and ecclesiastical persons ex- 
posed in the front of the soldiers to 
the greatest dangers. Thus the 
ladders, as I have said, were put into 
the hands of religious persons of both 
sexes; and these were forced at the 
head of the companies, to raise and 
apply them to the walls. But Cap- 
tain Morgan was deceived in his 
judgment of this design. For the 
governor, -^ho acted like a brave 
and courageous soldier, refused not, 
in performance of his duty, to use 
his utmost endeavors to destroy 
whosoever came near the walls. The 



there oc- 
curred an 
idea worthy 
of him alone. 
Let us follow 
Esquemel- 
ing's narra- 
tive again: 

"To this 
effect, there- 
fore, he or- 
dered ten or 
twelve lad- 
ders to be 
made, in 
all possible 
haste, so 
broad that 
three or four 
men at once 
might ascend 
them. ^These 
religious men 



religious men and women ceased not to cry unto 
him and beg of him by all the Saints of Heaven he 
would deliver the castle, and hereby spare both his 
and their own lives. But nothing could prevail with 
the obstinacy and fierceness that had possessed the 
governor's mind. Thus many of the religious men 
and nuns were killed before they could fix the ladders. 
Which at last being done, though with great loss of 
the said religious people, the pirates mounted them 
in great numbers, and with no less valour; having 
fireballs in their hands and earthen pots full of 
powder. All which things, being now at the top of 
the walls, they kindled and cast in among the 
Spaniards. 

"This effort of the pirates was very great, inso- 
much as the Spaniards could no longer resist nor 
defend the castle, which was now entered. Hereupon 
they all threw down their arms, and craved quarter 
for their lives. Only the governor of the city would 
admit or crave no mercy; but rather killed many of 
the pirates with his own hands, and not a few of his 
own soldiers because they did not stand to their 
arms. And although the pirates asked him if he 





A CUNA-CUNA FAMILY NEAR PORTO BELLO 



THE PILLAGE OF PORTO BELLO 



7Z 




would have quarter, yet he 
constantly answered: 'By no 
means; I had rather die as a 
valiant soldier, than be hanged 
as a coward'. They endeavored 
as much as they could to take 
him prisoner. But he defended 
himself so obstinately that they 
were forced to kill him ; notwith- 
standing all the cries and tears 
of his own wife and daughter, 
who begged him upon their 
knees he would demand quarter 
and save his life. When the 
pirates had possessed them- 
selves of the castle, which was 
about night, they enclosed 
therein all the prisoners they 
had taken, placing the women 
and men by themselves, with 
some guards upon them. All 
the wounded were put into a 
certain apartment by itself, 
to the intent their own com- 
plaints might be the cure of 
their disease; for no other was afforded them." who looked as if 

For fifteen days the buccaneers held high carnival torture to compel 
in Porto Bello. 
Drunk most 
of the time, 
weakened with 
debauchery and 
riot, with dis- 
cipline thrown 
to the winds, 
and captains 
and fighting 
men scattered 
all over the 
town in pursuit 
of women and 
wine, the out- 
laws were at 
the mercy of 
any determined 
assailant. Es- 
quemeling said, 

If there could a cholo mother and daughter 



A TRAIL NEAR PORTO BELLO 




have been found 50 determined 
men they could have retaken 
the city and killed all the 
pirates. Less than fifty miles 
away was Panama with a heavy 
garrison and a thousand or 
more citizens capable of bearing 
arms. Its governor must have 
known that the success of the 
raid on Porto Bello would but 
arouse the pirates' lust for a 
sack of his richer town. But 
instead of seizing the oppor- 
tunity to crush them when they 
were sodden and stupefied by 
debauchery he sent puerile 
messages asking to be informed 
with what manner of weapons 
they could have overcome such 
strong defenses. Morgan nat- 
urally replied with an insult 
and a threat to do likewise to 
Panama within a twelvemonth. 
"For fifteen days the revel 
was maintained, every citizen 
he had money being put to the 
him to confess w'here he had 
hidden it. 
When all had 
been extorted 
that seemed 
possible the 
buccaneers 
made ready to 
depart. But 
first Morgan 
demanded 100,- 
000 pieces of 
eight, in default 
of W'hich he 
w^ould bum the 
city and blow 
up the castles. 
The wretched 
citizens sought 
aid of the Presi- 
dent of Panama 
who was as un- 



74 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




A GROUP OF CUEPA TREES 



willing to help them with gold as with powder and 
lead. In some miraculous way they raised it, and 
Morgan and his men departed, making their way to 
that town of revelry, Port Royal, of which I have 
already spoken, at the entrance to Kingston harbor. 
Perhaps it is fair to contrast with Esquemeling's 
story of the exploit Morgan's official report — for this 
worthy had a royal commission for his deeds. The 
Captain reported that he had left Porto Bello in as 
good condition as he found it, that its people had 
been well treated, so much so that "several ladies of 
great quality and other prisoners who were offered 
their liberty to go to the President's camp refused, 
saying they were now prisoners to a person of quality 
who was more tender of their honors than they 
doubted to find in the President's camp; and so 
voluntarily continued with him." 

Captain Morgan's own testimony to his kindness 



to prisoners and his regard for female honor im- 
presses one as quite as novel and audacious as his 
brilliant idea of forcing priests and nuns to carry the 
scaling ladders with which to assault a fortress de- 
•fended by devout Catholics. Yet except for little 
incidents of this sort the whole crew — Spanish con- 
quistadores, French filibusters and British buc- 
caneers — were very tenacious of the forms of religion 
and ostentatious piety. The Spaniards were always 
singing Te Deums, and naming their engines of war 
after the saints; Captain Daniels, a French filibuster, 
shot dead a sailor for irreverent behavior during 
mass; the English ships had divine service every 
Sunday and profanity and gambling were sometimes 
prohibited in the enlistment articles. All of which 
goes to show that people may be very religious and 
still a pest to humanity — nor is it necessary to turn 
to the buccaneers for instances of this fact. 



CHAPTER IV 



SAN LORENZO AND PANAMA 




WO years of the joys of Port 
Royal emptied the pockets of 
the buccaneers. The money 
that passed from hand to hand 
over the gambling tables went 
thence into the pockets of the 
hordes of women from Spain, 
France and even England who 
flocked to that den of thieves, 
and from them into the coffers 
of merchants who 



the tidings that he planned a new raid to have as 
fine an assortment of picturesque cutthroats begging 
for enlistment as ever appeared outside the pages of 
a dime novel. 

Designating the south side of the island of Tortuga 
as a rendezvous, he wrote certain gentry whom 
Esquemeling in a matter of fact way calls "the 
ancient and expert Pirates there abiding", asking 
their cooperation. By the 24th of October, 1670, 
he had gathered together 37 ships fully armed 



took it back to Europe. As the money 
slowly disappeared the men 
clamored to be led on another 
raid. So great a reputation 
had Captain Morgan won that 
desperadoes frorti all cor- 
ners of the world flocked 
to Jamaica seeking 
enrollment in his 
service. He 
had but to 
give out 




MOUTH OF THE CHAGRES RIVER 
San Lorenzo stands on the brow of the cliff. The watch tower may be seen faintly uplifted 

75 



76 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



and victualled, with 2000 fighting men besides 
mariners and boys. The chief ship mounted 22 
great guns and six small brass cannon. 

With this force Morgan first attacked the island of 
San Caterina, expecting to capture there some 
Indian or Spaniard who would guide him to Panama, 












MOUTH OF THE CHAGRES FROM THE FORT 
The upper picture shows the sea beach on the Pacific Coast littered with drift-wooa 



by the Chagres 
River route, 
probably in or- 
der to take 
with him heavy 
artillery which 
could scarcely 
be dragged 
through the 
jungle. The 
first step to- 
ward the navi- 
gation of the 
river was the 
capture of Fort 
Lorenzo which 
stood on a 
high bluff at 
its mouth. 
Against this 
famous fort- 



for the sack of that city had been determined upon 
in preference to either Vera Cruz or Cartagena, 
because it was richer. The people of the island were 
in no condition to resist the overwhelming force of 
the English, but the governor begged Morgan to 
make a sham attack in order that his credit and that 
of his officers might be maintained at home, and 
accordingly much powder was ineffectively burned. 
It sounds like a cheap device, but it has been fre- 
quently employed in war when resistance was 
obviously futile, and some deference to uninformed 
home opinion was prudent. 

Having secured his guides, by the easy process of 
putting on the rack all the Indians captured until 
one was found willing to lead the raiders through his 
native land, Morgan determined to move on Panama 



ress, therefore, he sent Col. Bradley (or Brodley as 
he is sometimes called) with four ships and about 
400 men, while he himself remained at St. Cathe- 
rine to conceal from the Spaniards his ultimate 
design against Panama. 

The visitor to Colon should not fail, before cross- 
ing to the Pacific side of the Isthmus, to visit the 
ruins of the Castle of San Lorenzo. The trip is not 
an easy one, and must usually be arranged for in 
advance, but the end well repays the exertion. The 
easiest way, when the weather permits, is to charter '' 
a tug or motor boat and make the journey by sea — a 
trip of two or three hours at most. But the Carib- 
bean is a tempestuous and a treacherous sea. One 
may wait days for weather permitting the trip to be 
made in comfort, and even then may find a stormy 



THE WATER-WAY TO SAN LORENZO 



77 



afternoon succeed to a calm morning. For this 
reason it is essential that a seaworthy boat be pro- 
cured and, if not essential, very desirable that the 
company be not subject to the qualms of seasickness. 
To my mind the more interesting way to visit the 
ruins is to take the railroad out to Gatun, and there 
at the very base of the roaring spillway, board a 
power boat and chug down the sluggish Chagres to 
the river's mouth where stands the ancient fort. 
The boats obtainable are not of the most modern 
model and would stand a slender chance in speed 
: contests. But in one, however slow, you are lost 
to all appearance of civilization five minutes after 
you cast off from the clay bank. At Gatun, the 
canal which has been carried through the artificial 
lake made by damming ' the Chagres River, turns 
sharply away from that water course on the way to 
the new port of Balboa. The six or eight miles of 
the tropical river which we are to traverse have been 
untouched by the activities of the canal builders. 
The sluggish stream flows between walls of dense 
green jungle, as silent as though behind their barrier 



only a mile or two away there were not men by the 
thousands making great flights of aquatic steps to 
lift the world's ocean carriers over the hills. Once in 
awhile through the silent air comes the distant boom 
of a blast in Culebra, only an infrequent reminder 
of the presence of civilized man and his explosive 
activities. Infrequent though it is, however, it has 
been sufficient to frighten away the more timid in- 
habitants of the waterside — the alligators, the boas 
and the monkeys. Only at rare intervals are any of 
these seen now, though in the earlier days of the 
American invasion the alligators and monkeys were 
plentiful. Today the chief signs of animal life are 
the birds — herons, white and blue, flying from pool 
to pool or posing artistically on logs or in shallows ; 
great cormorant ducks that fly up and down mid- 
stream, apparently unacquainted with the terrors of 
the shotgun ; kingfishers in bright blue and paroquets 
in gaudy colors. The river is said to be full of fish, 
including sharks, for the water is saline clear up to 
the Gatun locks. 

I know of no spot, easy of access, on the Isthmus 
where an idea of the beauty and the terror of the 
jungle can be better gained than on the lower 
Chagres. The stout green barrier comes flush to the 




Photo by T. J. Marin 



THE SALLY-PORT AT SAN LORENZO 
An unusual picture because of the clearing away of the jungle. Ordinarily the walls are hidden 



78 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



water's edge, the mangroves at places wading out on 
their stilt-Uke roots into the stream hke a Hne of 
deployed skirmishers. That green wall looks light, 
beautiful, ethereal even, but lay your boat alongside 
it and essay to land. You will find it yielding indeed, 
but as impenetrable as a 
wall of adamant. It will 
receive you as gently as 
the liquid amber wel- 
comes the fly, and hold 
you as inexorably in its 
beautiful embrace when 
you are once entrapped. 
The tender fern, the 
shrinking sensitive plant, 
the flowering shrub, the 
bending sapling, the 
sturdy and towering tree 
are all tied together by 
lithe, serpentine, gnarled 
and unbreakable vines 
which seem to spring 
from the ground and 
hang from the highest 
branches as well. There 
are not enough inches of 
ground to support the 
vegetation so it grows 
from the trees living liter- 
ally on the air. Every 
green thing that can bear 
a thorn seems to have 
spines and prickers to tear 
the flesh, and to catch the 
clothing and hold the 
prisoner fast. Try it and 
you will see why no large 
mammals roam in the 
jungle; only the snakes 
and the lizards creeping 
down below the green tangle can attain large size 
and move. 

And how beautiful it all is ! The green alone would 
be enough, but it is varied by the glowing orange 
poll of a lignum vitas tree, the bright scarlet of the 
hibiscus, the purple of some lordly tree whose name 
the botanist will know but not the wayfarer. Color 
is in splotches on every side, from the wild flowers 




CHURCH AT CHAGRES 

Up the steep path in the foreground the buccaneers charged 
upon Fort Lorenzo 



close to the river's brink to great yellow blossoms on 
the tops of trees so tall that they tower over the 
forests like light-houses visible for miles around. 
Orchids in more delicate shades, orchids that would 
set Fifth Avenue agog, are here to be had for a few 

blows of a machete. It 
is a riot and a revel of 
color — as gay as the deco- 
rations of some ancient 
arena before the gladia- 
torial combats began. 
For life here is a steady 
battle too, a struggle be- 
tween man and the jimgle 
and woe to the man who 
invades the enemy's 
country alone or strays 
far from the trail, 
shadowy and indistinct 
as that may be. 

"A man ought to be 
able to live quite a while 
lost in the jungle," said 
a distinguished magazine 
writer who was with me 
on the upper Chagres 
once. We had been listen- 
ing to our guide's descrip- 
tion of the game, and 
edible fruits in the forest. 
"Live about two days 
if he couldn't find the 
trail or the river's bank," 
was the response .of the 
Man Who Knew. "If' 
he lived longer he'd live 
crazy. Torn by thorns, 
often poisoned, bitten by 
venomous insects, blis- 
tered by thirst, with the 
chances against his finding any fruit that was safe 
eating, he would probably die of the pain and of 
jungle madness before starvation brought a more 
merciful death. The jungle is a cat that tortures 
its captives; a python that embraces them in its 
graceful folds and hugs them to death ; a siren whose 
beauty lured them to perdition. Look out for it." 
The native Indian knows it and avoids it by doing 



APPROACH TO SAN LORENZO CASTLE 



79 



most of his traveling 
by canoe. On our trip 
to the river's mouth 
we passed many in 
their slender cayucas, 
some tied by a vine to 
the bank patiently 
fishing, others on their 
way to or from market 
with craft well loaded 
with bananas on the 
way up, but light com- 
ing back, holding gay 
converse with each 
other across the dark 
and sullen stream. 
Here and there 
through breaks in the 
foliage we see a native 

house, or a cluster of huts, not many however, for 
the jungle is too thick and the land too low here for 
the Indians who prefer the bluffs and occasional 
broad savannas of the upper waters. As we ap- 
proach its outlet the river, about fifty or sixty yards 
wide thus far, broadens into a considerable estuary, 
and rounding a point we see before us the blue 
Atlantic breaking into white foam on a bar which 
effectually closes the river to all save the smallest 
boats, and which you may be sure the United States 










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ft--.-- 










. ■ — ' ft w ^ -^-/' .^ 


ft 


M#^l 


- 








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P^/SMk 


BK5!SK5fj^5 


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'^*r^:^.«l 



SPANISH RUINS, PORTO BELLO 



OLD SPANISH MAGAZINE 

will never dredge away, to open a ready water-way 
to the base of the Gatun locks. To the left covering 
a low point, level as if artificially graded, is a beautiful 
cocoanut grove, to the right, across a bay perhaps a 
quarter of a mile wide is a native village of about 
fifty huts with an iron roofed church in the center — 
beyond the village rises a steep hill densely covered 
with verdure, so that it is only by the keenest search- 
ing that you can pick out here a stone sentry tower, 
there the angle of a massive wall — the ruins of the 

Castle of San Lorenzo. 



"Cloud crested San 
Lorenzo guards 
The Chagres en- 
trance still, 
Though o'er each 
stone the moss 
hath grown 
And earth his 
moat doth fill. 
His bastions feeble 
with decay 
Steadfastl}^ view 
the sea, 
And sternly wait 
the certain fate 
The ages shall de- 
cree." 

We land in the co- 
coanut grove across 



So 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




OUR GUIDE AT SAN LORENZO 

the river from the ruins we have come to see and 
tne uninitiated among us wonder why. It appears 
however that the descendants of the natives who 
so readily surrendered dominion of the land to the 
Spaniards are made of sterner stuff than their an- 
cestors. Or perhaps it was because we had neither 
swords or breastplates that they reversed the i6th 
■century practice and extorted tribute of silver from 
IIS for ferrying us across the stream in cayucas when 
our own boats and boat-men would have given us a 
greater sense of security. Landed in the village we 
were convoyed with great ceremony to the alcalde's 
hut where it was demanded that we register our 
names and places of residence. Perhaps that gave 
lis a vote in the Republic of Panama, but we saw no 
political evidences about unless a small saloon, in a 
hut thatched with palmetto leaves and with a mud 
floor and basket work sides might be taken for a 
"headquarters". ■ Indeed the saloon and a frame 
church were about the only signs of civilization about 
the town if we except a bill posted in the alcalde's 



office setting forth the mysterious occult powers of 
a wizard and soothsayer who, among other services 
to mankind, recounted a number of rich marriages 
which had been made by the aid of his philters and 
spells. 

We made our way from the village attended by 
volunteer guides in the scantiest of clothing, across 
a little runway at the bottom of a ravine, and so into 
the path that leads up the height crowned by the 
castle. It was two hundred and fifty years ago, 
almost, that the little hollow ran with a crimson 
fluid, and the bodies of dead Spaniards lay in the 
rivulet where now the little native boys are cooling 
their feet. The path is steep, rugged and narrow. 
Branches arch overhead and as the trail has served 
as a runway for the downpour of innumerable tropical 
rains the soil is largely washed away from between 
the stones, and the climbing is hard. 

"Not much fun carrying a steel helmet, a heavy- 
leather jacket and a twenty-pound blunderbuss up 
this road on a hot day, with bullets and arrows 
whistling past," remarks a heavy man in the van, 
and the picture he conjures up of the Spanish assail- 
ants on that hot afternoon in 1 780 seems very vivid. 
Although the fort, the remains of which are now 
standing, is not the one which Morgan destroyed, 
the site, the natural defenses and the plan of the 
works are identical. There was more wood in the 
original fort than in that of which the remains are 
now discernible — to which fact its capture was due. 




THE AUTHOR AT SAN LORENZO 



A RIP VAN WINKLE OF A FORTRESS 



8i 




LOOKING UP THE CHAGRES FROM SAN LORENZO 



The villagers every now and then cut away the 
dense underbrush which grows in the ancient fosse 
and traverses and conceals effectually the general 
plan of the fortress from the visitor. This cleaning 
up process unveils to the eye the massive masonry, 
and the towering battlements as shown by some of 
the illustrations here printed. But, except to the 
scientific student of archaeology and of fortification, 
the ruins are more picturesque as they were when I 
saw them, overgrown with creeping vines and shrubs 
jutting out from every cornice and crevice, with the 
walls so masked by the green curtain that when 
some sharp salient angle boldly juts out before 
you, you start as you would if rounding the corner 
of the Flatiron Building you should come upon a 
cocoanut palm bending in the breeze. Here you 
come to great vaulted chambers, dungeons lighted 



by but one barred casemate where on the muddy 
ground you see rusty iron fetters weighing forty 
pounds or more to clamp about a prisoner's ankle or, 
for that matter, his neck. 

The vaulted brick ceiling above is as perfect as 
the day Spanish builders shaped it and the mortar 
betwixt the great stones forming the walls is too 
hard to be picked away with a stout knife. Pushing 
through the thicket which covers every open space 
you stumble over a dismounted cannon, or a neat 
conical pile of rusty cannon balls, carefully prepared 
for the shock of battle perhaps two hundred years 
ago and lying in peaceful slumber ever since — a real 
Rip Van Winkle of a fortress it is, with no likelihood 
of any rude awakening. In one spot seems to have 
been a sort of central square. In the very heart of 
the citadel is a great masonry tank to hold drinking 



82 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



water for the besieged. It was built before the 19th 
century had made its entrance upon the procession 
of the centuries, but the day I saw it the still water 
that it held reflected the fleecy clouds in the blue 
sky, and no drop trickled through the joints of the 
honest and ancient masonry. Back and forth 
through narrow gates, in and out of vaulted 
chambers, down dark passages behind twenty-foot 
walls you wander, with but little idea of the topog- 
raphy of the place until you come to a little watch 
tower jutting out at one corner of the wall. Here 
the land falls away sharply a hundred feet or more 
to the sea and you understand why the buccaneers 



they found the garrison reenforced until it nearly 
equaled the English. So slight was the disparity 
in numbers that it seems amazing that the English 
could have sustained the rigors of the assault. It 
was, of course, impossible to attack the castle on 
its sea front, and the invaders accordingly left their 
boats about a league from the castle, making their 
way painfully through the jungle toward the place 
of action. Esquemeling describes the fortification 
which they were to 
overthrow thus : /-,,, -■ 



"This castle is 
built upon a high 




THE TRUE NATIVE SOCIAL CENTER 



were forced to attack from the landward side, though 
as you were scaling that toilsome slope you wondered 
that any race of humans ever dared attack it 
at all. 

In their story of the assault on Fort Lorenzo, as 
indeed in the narrative of all the doings of the 
buccaneers, the historians have followed the narra- 
tive of Esquemeling, a young Dutch apothecary 
who joined the sea rovers as a sort of assistant sur- 
geon, and wrote a book which has kept his memory 
alive, whatever may have been the effect of his 
surgery on his patients. News of the advance of 
the English had reached the Governor of Panama 
so that when the assailants reached the battlefield 



mountain, at the entry of the river, and surrounded 
on all sides with strong palisades, or wooden walls; 
being very well terrepleined, and filled with earth; 
which renders them as secure as the best walls made 
of stone or brick. The top of this mountain is in a 
manner divided into two parts, between which lies a 
ditch of the depth of thirty feet. The castle itself 
has but one entry, and that by a drawbridge which 
passes over the ditch aforementioned. On the land 
side it has four bastions, that of the sea containing 
only two more. That part thereof which looks to- 
wards the South is totally inaccessible and im- 
possible to be climbed, through the infinite asperity 
of the mountain. 



THE ASSAULT OF THE BUCCANEERS 



83 



"The North side is surrounded by the river, 
which hereabouts runs very broad. At the foot of 
the said castle, or rather mountain, is seated a 
strong fort, with eight great guns, which commands 
and impedes the entry of 
the river. Not much 
lower are to be seen two 
other batteries, whereof 
each hath six pieces of 
cannon to defend hkewise 
the mouth of the said 
river. At one side of the 
castle are built two great 
store-houses, in which are 
deposited all sorts of war- 
like ammunition and 
merchandise, which are 
brought hither from the 
inner parts of the country. 
Near these houses is a 
high pair of stairs, hewed 
out of the rock, which 
serves to mount to the 
top of the castle. On the 
West side of the said 
fortress lies a small port, 
which is not above seven 
or eight fathoms deep, 
being very fit for small 
vessels and of very good 
anchorage. Besides this, 
there lies before the castle, 
at the entry of the river, 
a great rock, scarce to be 
perceived above water, 
unless at low tide." 

If the English had 
hoped to take the garri- 
son by surprise they were 
speedily undeceived. 
Hardly had they emerged 
from the thicket into the 
open space on which stands 



bank of which stood the outer walls of the fort made 
of timber and clay. It was two in the afternoon 
when the fighting began. The assailants charged 
with their usual daredevil valor, carrying fire-balls 




now the 
Chagres than they were welcomed with so hot a volley 
of musketry and artillery from the castle walls that 
many fell dead at the first fire. To assault they 
had to cross a ravine, charge up a bare hillside, and 
pass through a ditch thirty feet deep at the further 



TROPICAL FOLIAGE ON THE CARIBBEAN 

village of along with their swords and muskets. The Span- 
iards met them with no less determination, crying out: 
"Come on, ye Englishmen, enemies to God and 
our King; let your other companions that are be- 
hind come too; ye shall not go to Panama this 
bout." 



84 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



All the afternoon and into the night the battle 
raged and the assailants might well have despaired 
of success except for an event which Esquemeling 
thus describes: 

"One of the Pirates was wounded with an arrow 
in his back which pierced his body to the other side. 
This instantly he pulled out with great valor at the 
side of his breast; then taking a little cotton that 
he had about him, he wound it about the said 
arrow, and putting it into his musket, he shot it 
back into the castle. But the cotton being kindled 
by the powder occasioned two or three houses that 
were within the castle, being thatched with palm 
leaves, to take fire, which the Spaniards perceived 
not so soon as was necessary. For this fire meeting 
with a parcel of powder blew it up, and hereby 
caused great ruin, and no less consternation to the 
Spaniards, who were not able to account for this 
accident, not having seen the beginning thereof." 

The fire within the fort not only disconcerted its 
defenders but greatly aided the assailants, for by its 
flames the Spaniards could be seen working their 
guns and were picked off by the English sharp- 
shooters. The artillery of the invaders made 
breaches in the walls and the debris thus occasioned 
dropped into the ditch making its crossing practi- 
cable for a storming party. Though the gallant 
governor of the castle threw himself into the breach 
and fought with the greatest desperation, he was 
forced back and into his citadel. There a musket 



shot pierced his brain and 
the defense which was be- 
coming a defeat became in 
fact a rout. Spaniards flung 
themselves from the lofty 
cliffs upon the rocks below 
or into the sea rather than 
trust to the mercy of their 
conquerors. All but thirty 
of the garrison of 314 were 
slain, not one officer escaping, 
and only a few escaped to 
steal up the river and through 
the jungle carrying to Pana- 
ma the dismal tale of the fall 
of its chief outpost. 

Nor did the English win 
their triumph easily. Their 
force was in the neighbor- 
hood of 400, of whom more 
than 100 were killed and 70 wounded. A round 
shot took off both legs of Colonel Bradley and 
from the wound he died a few days later. The 
church of the castle was turned into a hospital, 
the Spaniards were made to bury their own dead, 
which was done by dropping them over the cliff into 
the sea, and word was sent to Morgan that the 
way was clear for his march upon Panama. 




NATIVE PANAMA WOMAN 



We may for a time 




ON THE UPPER CHAGRES 



turn aside from Buccaneer 
Morgan and his ravenous 
raid to consider the later 
history of the two strong- 
holds — Porto Bello and 
San Lorenzo — which lie to 
the east and west of Colon. 
It was not the rude shock 
of war which reduced them 
to the state of desolation 
and ruin in which visitors 
now find them — though of 
such shocks they certainly 
experienced enough. Mor- 
gan on his return from 
Panama blew up San Lo- 
renzo and left it a wreck, 
but the Spaniards rebuilt 
it stronger than ever and 



THE END OF PORTO BELLO AND SAN LORENZO 



85 




A CHARACTER OF COLON 



it long continued to 
mount guard over the 
entrance to the Cha- 
gres. So too with the 
forts at Porto Bello. 
But about 1738 one 
Edward Vernon, after 
whom it is said Mount 
Vernon, the home 
o f Washington , was 
named, rose in the 
EngHsh parHament and 
declared that he could 
take Porto Bello with 
only six ships. Par- 
liament took him at 
his word, commissioned 
him admiral, gave him 
seven ships and dis- 
patched him on the 
enterprise. Being a gentleman of spirit and a true 
sport, Admiral Vernon, on approaching the Isthmus, 
sent one of his ships into other waters, "disdaining 
to appear before Porto Bello with one ship more 
than he had engaged to take it with." Success 
came to him with ease. Only four of his ships were 
engaged and the only considerable 
loss was among a landing party 
which stormed the lower battery of 
the Iron Fort. The Spaniards 
showed but little stomach for the s 

fight, and it is worth noting that 
in the recurrent affrays in the 
West Indies and Central America 
the English whipped them with the 
same monotonous certainty with 
which the latter had beaten the 
Indians. Any one desiring to 
draw broad generalizations as to 
the comparative courage of na- 
tions is welcome to this fact. 

After refitting at Jamaica, Ad- 
miral Vernon, with a somewhat 
larger fleet, proceeded against San 
Lorenzo. Again his triumph was 
easy, for after a leisurely bom- 
bardment to which the Spaniards 
replied but languidly, the white 



flag was displayed and the English entered into 
possession. The warehouses in Chagres were plun- 
dered and the fort blown up. The spluttering war 
between England and Spain in which these actions 
occurred became known as "the war of Jenkins' 
ear." A too zealous guarda costa lopped off the 
ear of a certain Captain Jenkins who, though un- 
known to fame prior to that outrage, so made the 
welkin ring in England, even exhibiting the 
mummified member from which he had been thus 
rudely divorced, that Parliament was forced to 
declare a war in retaliation for his ear or have its 
own talked off. 

The buccaneers and pirates really caused the 
final abandonment of Porto Bello and San Lorenzo, 
though not by direct attack. They made trade by 
the Caribbean and along the Spanish Main so 
perilous that the people of the Pacific coast found 
it more profitable in the long run to make the voyage 
around the Horn or through the Straits of Magellan. 
The economics of trade are unvarying. It seeks 
the cheapest before the shortest routes, and one 
of the studies of our 
canal authorities will 
be to so fix their 
tolls that they will 




WOMAN OF THE CHAGRES REGION 



86 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



not, like Morgan, L'Olonais and others, frighten 
trade away from the Isthmus. 

Though the forts were rebuilt to their original 
strength in 1751, they never regained importance. 
Porto Bello disappeared when the Royal Road to 
Panama lost its traffic, and the Chagres only 
resumed a brief importance in 1844 when the Royal 
Mail Steampacket Co. made San Lorenzo a port 
of call. When Colon, however, appeared as a port 



and the terminus of the Panama railroad, the 
fate of all other ports on the Atlantic side of the 
Isthmus was sealed. Left to brood over the days 
of their greatness — though indeed they never re- 
pelled any serious attack — the Iron Fort and San 
Lorenzo were abandoned by their Colombian gar- 
risons and given over to the insidious and irresistible 
conquest of the jungle. Picturesque and dignified, 
they well repay the visit of the tourist. 



" Still standeth San Lorenzo there, 

Aye, faithful at his post. 
Though scoffing trees in every breeze 

Their prime and vigor boast; 
His garrison is but the shades 

Of soldiers of the past, 
But it pleaseth him, alone and grim. 

To watch unto the last." 



CHAPTER V 



THE SACK OF OLD PANAMA 




HE week after the fall of 
San Lorenzo, Morgan with 
his full force appeared at 
the mouth of the Chagres 
River. Before leaving St. 
Catherine he had disman- 
tled the forts and burned all 
the houses for no particu- 
lar reason except the seem- 
ingly instinctive desire of 
a buccaneer to destroy all 
that he could not steal. 
At once he began his prep- 
arations for the ascent of the Chagres to its head of 
navigation, where, disembarking, he would take the 
trail for Old Panama. Cruces, which was the point 
of debarkation, had grown to a considerable town at 
this time, being the point of transshipment of goods 
destined for Nombre de Dios, or Porto Bello, from 
the mules that had brought them thus far, to the 
boats that would float them down to tide water. 
The town, an inconsiderable hamlet of thatched huts, 
remained in 1913, but 
the rise of Gatun Lake 
was expected to prac- 
tically blot it out of 
existence. 

Old Panama, for 
which Morgan was 
preparing the grim 
experience of a battle 
and a sack, had been 
founded in 15 19 by 
that Pedrarias of 
whom we have told 
as the executioner of 
Balboa. It had 
grown rapidly, built 
up by the trade re- 
sulting from the in- 
vasion of Peru. At 



the time of Morgan's raid Esquemeling writes 
of the city: 

"There belonged to this city (which is also the 
head of a bishopric) eight monasteries, whereof 
seven were for men and one for women; two stately 
churches and one hospital. The churches and monas- 
teries were all richly adorned with altar-pieces and 
paintings, huge quantity of gold and silver, with 
other precious things. . . . Besides which orna- 
ments, here were to be seen two thousand houses 
of magnificent and prodigious building, being all of 
the greatest part inhabited by merchants of that 
country, who are vastly rich. For the rest of the 
inhabitants of lesser quality and tradesmen, this city 
contained five thousand houses more. Here were also 
great numbers of stables, which served for the horses 
and mules, that carry all the plate, belonging as well 
unto the King of Spain as to private men, towards 
the coast of the North Sea. The neighboring fields be- 
longing to this city are all cultivated and fertile plan- 
tations, and pleasant gardens, which afford delicious 
prospects unto the inhabitants the whole year long." 




NEAR A CO.WL.Xi _\i 



\XAM.-\ 



87 



88 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



Correal fixes the number of private houses as 



between seven and eight thousand. The pious 



The country round about Panama was then, and 
still is, arable and well-fitted for grazing. The rural 
Thomas Gage whom we have seen haggling for population was but small, more meager indeed 
rooms at Porto Bello visited Panama about 1538 than one would think would have been necessary 
and even then credits it with five thousand inhabit- for raising vegetables for so considerable a town. 

In the back country were great num- 
bers of Cimmaroons, or escaped slaves 
who are described as living in com- 
munities, ruled over by a black king. 
They went naked and were armed 
with bows and arrows, spears, darts 
and machetes. They lived on plun- 
der and as when captured were they 
killed, or, at the best, enslaved anew, 
they fought with great desperation. 
Merchandise trains were their chief 
victims, though they often raided 
cattle ranches, or cut off individuals 
in the outskirts of the city. The 
English supplied them with weapons 
and could always be sure of their aid 
against the Spaniards, who had been 
their masters and whom they hated. 
The harbor was wretched, useful 
only for small vessels which at high 
tide could come straight to the sea- 
wall, being left there by the receding 
tide, high and dry, so that by quick 
action they could be unloaded before 
the waters returned. A very con- 
siderable part of the food of the town 
was fish brought thither by Indians 
from Taboga and nearby islands. 

Such was the town which Morgan 
raided. Because of the colossal dis- 
aster which befell it, a disaster with- 
out parallel since the days when the 
Goths and Vandals swept down over 
the pleasant plains of Italy, there has 
been a tendency to magnify the size, 
wealth and refinement of Panama at 
the time of its fall. But studied calmly, with no 
desire to exaggerate the qualities which made it so 
rich a prize, Panama may fairly be described as a 
city of about 30,000 people, with massive churches, 
convents and official buildings of masonry, with many 
stately houses of the type esteemed luxurious in the 
tropics, and peopled largely by pure-blooded Span- 




CASA EEALE OR KING S HOUSE 
Its heavy walls show that it was planned for defense but the Spaniards abandoned it 

ants, and at least eight cloisters of nuns and friars. 
Unfortunately the good evangelist found that "the 
Spaniards are in this city much given to sinne, 
looseness and venery," for which reason, or perhaps 
because he "feared much the heats," he made haste 
to leave the town and left us none of those graphic 
descriptions of which his pen was capable. 



THE ADVANCE OF THE BUCCANEERS 



89 



iards of the better type. It was too early a date for 
the amalgamation of races now so much in evidence 
on the Isthmus to have proceeded far, and the an- 
cient records show that the Spaniards of substance 
in the town had mainly come thither from Seville. 
Morgan started up the river from San Lorenzo, 
where he left 500 men to serve as a garrison, on the 
1 8th of January, 1761. His force comprised 1200 
men in five boats with artillery and thirty-two 
canoes. The raiders planned to live on the country 
and hence took small store of provisions — an error 
which nearly wrecked the expedition. The first day 
they covered about eighteen miles. This was by 
nature made the easiest part of their journey, for 
this stretch of the Chagres is deep, with but a slow 
current and much of the way they may have been 
aided by the incoming tide. If the chronicler who 
fixed their distance covered at eighteen miles was 
correct, they must have pitched their camp the 
first night not very far from where Gatun Dam now 
rears its mighty bulk across the valley and makes of 
the Chagres a broad lake. Their troubles however 
came with their first nightfall. Leaving their boats 
and scattering about the surrounding country they 
found that the Spaniards had raked it clean of 
provisions of every sort. The Indian villages were 
either smoking ruins or clusters of empty huts, the 
cattle ranches were bare of cattle, and even the 
banana and yam patches were stripped. By noon 
on the second day, according to Esquemeling, 
"they were compelled to leave their boats and canoes 
by reason the river was very dry for want of rain, 
and the many trees that were fallen into it." Hence- 
forth at that point the Chagres River transformed 
into a lake will be in the neighborhood of forty feet 
deep the year round. Apparently, however, the 
abandonment of the boats was only partial, the 
main body of troops marching through the woods 
while others waded, pushing the boats over the 
shallows as is done today. The advance was 
continued in this fashion, partly by water and partly 
through the jungle, all with the greatest difficulty, 
at a snail's pace and on stomachs daily growing 
emptier. Twice they came upon signs that the 
Spaniards had prepared an ambuscade for them, 
but becoming faint-hearted had fied. Thereat the 
buccaneers grumbled mightily. They were better at 
fighting than at chopping paths through the jungle, 







Pholo bi/ BuTtls <t Ellloll 

THE RUINED TOWER OF SAN AUGUSTINE 



90 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




WAYSIDE SHRINE ON THE SAVANNA ROAD 

and were so hungry that if they had slain a few 
Spaniards they would quite probably have cooked 
and eaten them. For six days they struggled with 
the jungle without finding any food whatsoever, 
then they discovered a granary stored with maize 
which they ate exultingly. Leather scraps became 
a much prized article of food, just as in a very 
different climate Greely's men in the Arctic circle 
kept alive on shreds cut from their sealskin boots. 
Of leather as an article of diet Esquemeling writes: 
"Here again he was happy, that had reserved 
since noon any small piece of leather whereof to 
make his supper, drinking after it a good draught of 
water for his greatest comfort. Some persons, who 



never were out of their mothers' kitchens, may ask 
how these pirates could eat, swallow and digest 
those pieces of leather, so hard and dry. To whom 
I only answer: That could they once experiment 
what hunger, or rather famine, is, they would cer- 
tainly find the manner, by their own necessity, as 
the pirates did. For these first took the leather 
and sliced it in pieces. Then did they beat it be- 
tween two stones, and rub it, often dipping it in the 
water of the river to render it by these means supple 
and tender. Lastly they scraped off the hair, and 
roasted or broiled it upon the fire. And, being thus 
cooked, they cut it into small morsels, and eat it, 
helping it down with frequent gulps of water, 
which by good fortune they had near at hand." 

Once only did they meet with any resistance; 
that was near Cruces where several hundred Indians 
ambushed them in the jungle, and while avoiding 
any direct combat, killed several with arrows. As 
the Indians fled they cried out in Spanish, "Ho, ye 
dogs! Go to the savanna; to the savanna," from 
which, as from like warnings uttered by stragglers, 
the invaders concluded that battle was to be given 
them on the broad plain before the city. 

It had taken six days for the expedition to reach 
Cruces — a trip which could readily be made today 
by train to Camboa and thence by cayuca in five or 
six hours. Arrived there they prepared for the 
last stage of the journey, for there they finally left 
their boats and took up the Royal Road. Cruces is 
eight miles from Panama, and at the moment of 
Morgan's descent upon it, was at the period of its 
greatest prosperity. Of its rise to greatness and its 
final disappearance under the rising waters of Gatun 
Lake I shall have more to say in the chapter con- 
cerning the Chagres River. The English found the 
frame houses already ablaze, and the larders swept 
clean, the Spaniards having followed their invariable 
custom of leaving no food for the invaders. Some 
wretched dogs and cats which hung about the de- 
serted dwellings were killed and eaten, and in the 
storehouses a number of jars of wine were found, 
upon drinking which the buccaneers became deathly 
sick. They claimed it was poisoned, but more 
probably their stomachs, which had been struggling 
to digest leather scraps, were in no condition for the 
strong wines of the tropics. 

From this point onward the invaders saw many of 



THE BANQUET BEFORE PANAMA 



91 



their enemies, but the Indians only offered active 
resistance, firing upon the advancing cokimn from 
ambuscades, and at one or two made a determined 
stand. As the invaders were strung out in single 
file along a narrow road (Esquemeling complains 
that only ten or twelve men could walk in a file) it 
would have been easy to so impede their progress, 
and harass them with attacks from the bush, as to 
defeat their purpose wholly. For it is to be remem- 
bered that the English were almost starved, footsore 
and weary, dragging cannon along the rocky roads 
and bearing heavy equipment under the scorching 
sun. But the Spaniards contented themselves with 
shouting defiance and daring the invaders to meet 
them "a la savanna." At the first danger of a 
fight they ran away. 

Gaining on the ninth day of their march the top 
of a hill, still known as "El Cerro de los Bucca- 
neeros" (The Hill of the Buccaneers), the pirates 
had the joy of seeing for the first time the Pacific, 
and thus knowing that Panama must be at hand. 
Upon the plain below they came upon a great body 



of cattle. Some historians say that the Spaniards 
had gathered a great herd of savage bulls to be 
driven upon the English lines in expectation of 
putting them to rout. The tradition seems doubt- 
ful, and to any one who has seen the mild and docile 
bulls of the Panama savannas it is merely ridiculous. 
However the cattle came there it was an ill chance 
for the Spaniards, for they furnished the hearty 
food necessary to put fight again into the famished 
bodies of the buccaneers. Esquemeling's descrip- 
tion of the banquet on the plains is hardly appe- 
tizing : 

"Here while some were employed in killing and 
flaying cows, horses, bulls and chiefly asses, of which 
there was greatest number, others busied themselves 
in kindling of fires and getting wood wherewith to 
roast them. Thus cutting the flesh of these animals 
into pieces, or gobbets, they threw them into the 
fire, and half carbonadoed or roasted, they devoured 
them with incredible haste and appetite. For such 
was their hunger that they more resembled cannibals 
than Europeans at this banquet, the blood many 




ARCHED BRIDGE AT OLD PANAMA, ALMOST 400 YEARS OLD 
There was no Horatius to hold this strait path against the invaders 



92 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



times running down from their beards to the middle 

of their bodies." 

Gorged to their gullets, the cutthroats lay down to 

rest. Morgan had a sharp watch kept, and sounded 

at least one false alarm that the men might not 

sleep too securely. 

But the Span- 
iards on the eve 

of their crushing 

disaster left their 

foes to rest in 

peace except for a 

noisy cannonade 

which did no 

damage, and 

shouts of ' ' Cor- 

ros ! Nos Vere- 

mos"— "Dogs! 

We will see you 

again," which 

they certainly 

did, finding the 

meeting most un- 
pleasant. 

On the morrow, 

the tenth day 

after leaving San 

Lorenzo, and 

either the i8th or 

27th of January, 

167 1, for contem- 
porary writers 

differ about the 

date, the attack 

on the city be- 
gan. The bucca- 
neers disappoint- 
ed the Spanish at 

the very outset 

by not taking the 

road which lay 

plain and open to them and which was well com- 
' manded by the Spanish batteries and ambuscades, 

but came upon them through the woods. This 
j violation of the rules of the game embarrassed the 
j Spaniards from the very first. 

But even so, they had every advantage on their 

side — except courage. They largely outnumbered 




Photo bv I'ToJ. Olio LuU 



FOLIAGE ON THE CANAL ZONE 



the assailants, though the estimate of the hostile 
generals differ greatly, as they always have in 
history. We must reasonably suppose that in a 
battle on the issue of which directly depended their 
lives, the lives and honor of their womenfolk, their 

homes, their for- 
tunes, their liber- 
ty and the con- 
tinued existence 
of their city the 
people of Pana- 
ma would have 
turned out to a 
man. Yet the 
President of 
Panama reported 
to the Spanish 
court that he had 
but 1200 men, 
mostly negroes, 
mulattoes and In- 
dians, armed with 
fowling pieces 
and his only artil- 
lery three wooden 
cannon bound 
with rawhide. 
Dr. C. L. G. An- 
derson, to whose 
painstaking 
study of the old 
Spanish chroni- 
clers all present- 
day students of 
Panama history 
must be largely 
indebted, says, 
and reasonably,, 
"The Spanish- 
army was made 
up not merely of 
merchants, planters and servants, but contained 
besides many regular troops; veterans of the wars 
in Flanders, Sicily and other countries of Europe." 
Whatever the precise figures may have been there 
is no question that the assailants were largely out- 
numbered by the defenders who, fighting for wives 
and children, homes and firesides, might have been 



THE BUCCANEERS TRIUMPHANT IN BATTLE 



93 




THE CHAGRES ABOVE SAN LORENZO 

expected to show desperate valor. Instead of which 
the buccaneers put the Spaniards to rout in two 
hours' fighting on the plain to which the pirates had 
been so scornfully invited. 

The Spanish plan of battle savored largely of the 
theatrical. As the circus opens its performance 
with a grand entry of mounted performers, so the 
Spaniards ushered in the fight with a grand charge 
of cavalry. Admirable cavalrymen, they are said 
to have been, well mounted on trained cattle ponies 
and in all about 400 strong. Unhappily there ap- 
peared to have been no preliminary study of the 
English position, and a morass impenetrable by 
horsemen guarded its flanks. Only in front could 
the English line be reached and there the trained 
marksmen of the buccaneers, or cattle hunters, 
dropping on one knee, picked off the Spanish horse- 
men before they could close. The cavalry hardly 
reached the buccaneers' first line though they 
charged twice with the utmost gallantry. An 
infantry charge that followed was beaten back with 
like slaughter. Seeing this the Spaniards are said 
to have resorted to a device as ridiciilous in its 
outcome as it was in its conception. This was the 
driving against the buccaneers' lines of a herd of a 
thousand bulls driven by fifty vaqueros. With 
great shouting and cracking of whips the herd was 
urged against the invaders. But the Central Ameri- 
can bull as a ferocious beast is a disappointment — 



which per- 
haps explains 
the placidity with 
which Panama agreed to 
the request of the United States 
that it abolish bull fighting. If not 
vicious, however, they can be obstinate, and 
about as many bulls charged into the already shat- 
tered Spanish lines as upon the buccaneers. Mor- 
gan showed quick wit by ordering his men to let 
the bulls pass, but kill the vaqueros, and so, with 
the exception of a few bovines who lingered to 
rend the British flags, being enraged by their 
scarlet hue, the greater part of the herd trotted 
off to a quieter part of the savanna where they 
might placidly graze while the foolish men who had 
sought to drag them into the quarrel went on killing 
each other. This virtually ended the Spanish 
defense. After another charge the defenders of the 
city gave up any effort at organized opposition to 
the invaders and fled into the city, or to the shelter 
of the neighboring jungle. The English, exhausted 
with their long march and the shock of the battle, 
did not immediately follow up their advantage 
but rested for some hours. There is much conflict 
of authority on the question of loss in the battle. 
Morgan claimed to have lost only five men killed 
and ten wounded, and fixed the Spanish loss at 
about 400. Esquemeling says there were 600 



94 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




IN THE CRYPT OF OLD SA\ \l i.l ^ 

Spaniards dead upon the field beside the wounded 
and prisoners. Whatever the comparative losses 
the Spanish defeat was decisive, nor did the survi- 
vors regain sufficient morale to offer any effective 
opposition to the buccaneers as they moved upon 
the city. 

One would think that the final defense would have 
been dogged and desperate in the extreme. The 
Spaniards knew what to expect in the way of mur- 
der, rapine, plunder and enslavement. They had 
the story of Porto Bello fresh in their memories, and, 
for that matter, they had enjoyed such fruits of 
victory themselves too often to hug the delusion 
that these victors would forego them. Nor even 
after the decisive thrashing they had sustained on 
the plain need they have despaired. On three sides 
Panama was defended by the sea and its inlets, and 
©n the fourth could only be approached along a 
single road and over an arched bridge, the sturdy 
masonry of which still stands, and forms a favorite 
background for photographic groups of tourists. 
Though not walled, as was its successor, Old Panama 
had a great plenty of heavy masonry buildings, the 
ruins of which show them to have been constructed 
with a view to defense. The churches, the eight 
convents, the official buildings and many of the 
private residences were built of stone with heavy 
barred windows and, if stoutly defended in conjunc- 
tion with barricades in the streets, might well have 
balked the invaders of their prey. But the Spanish 
spirit seemed crushed by the defeat of their choice 



cavalry on the savanna, 
and three hours sufficed for 
the English to make them- 
selves masters of the whole 
city. During the fighting 
flames broke out in several 
quarters of the town, some 
think set purposely by the 
assailants, which was de- 
nied by Morgan. However 
caused, the fires raged for 
days, were still smoldering 
when the buccaneers left 
three weeks later, and con- 
sumed nearly all except the 
masonry edifices in the city. 
Imagination balks at the 
eft'ort to conceive the wretched plight of the 30,000 
people of this city, subjected for three weeks to the 
cruelty, cupidity and lust of the "experienced and 
ancient pyrates" and the cutthroats of all nation- 
alities that made up the command of Morgan. Little 
more than a 
thousand of the 
raiders could 
have remained 
alive, but all 
the fighting 
men of the 
city were slain, 
wounded or 
cowed into un- 
manly subjec- 
tion. After the 
first riotous 
orgy of drunk- 
enness and 
rapine — though 
indeed Morgan 
shrewdly strove 
to keep his men 
sober by spread- 
ing the report 
that all the 
wine had been 
poisoned — the 
business of loot- 
ing was taken 




A WOMAN OF OLD PANAMA 



THE PIRATES' ORGY OF PLUNDER 



95 



up seriously. First the churches and government 
houses had to be ransacked for precious orna- 
ments and treasure, and herein the robbers met 
with their first serious disappointment, for on the 
news of their coming much of the plate had been 
put on ships and sent out to sea. A brig aground 
in the harbor was seized by Morgan and sent in 
pursuit, but the delights of the Island of Taboga, 



From ceremonial plate to the seamstress's thimble; 
from the glittering necklace to the wedding ring, 
everything was raked together into the great common 
store of plunder. What was easily found was not 
enough. Wells were searched, floors torn up, walls 
ripped open and, after all other devices had been 
employed, prisoners were put to the torture to make 
them reveal the hiding places of their own and 




WASH DAY AT TABOGA 



then as now a pleasure resort, proved superior even 
to the avariciousness of the Spaniards, and they 
lingered there over wine cups until the treasure ships 
had vanished. Rumors still linger that much of 
the treasure had been buried at Taboga, and that 
one richly freighted ship had been sunk some place 
nearby. But frequent treasure-hunting expeditions 
have come home empty handed. 

After raking the government buildings from gar- 
ret to vaults the pirates turned to the private houses. 



others' valuables. Capt. Morgan led in this activity, 
as indeed he appears to have been the most villainous 
of all his crew in the mistreatment of women. After 
all that could be gathered by these devices had been 
taken the several thousand prisoners were in- 
formed that if they wanted to retain their lives 
and regain their liberty they must pay ransom, 
fixed in amount according to the standing in the 
community and the wealth of the captive. Of 
course the community was gone and the buccaneers 



96 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




had taken 
all of the 
wealth, but 
the luckless 
prisoner was 
expected to 
pay neverthe- 
less and a sur- 
prising num- 
ber of them 
did so. With 
all these ex- 
pedients for 
the extraction 
of wealth 
from a subju- 
gated town, the buccaneers were fain to be satisfied, 
and, weak from wounds and revelry, according to 
Esquemeling : 

"On the 24th of February, of the year 1761, Cap- 
tain Morgan departed from the city of Panama, or 
rather from the place where the city of Panama did 
stand. Of the spoils whereof he carried with him one 
hundred and seventy-five beasts of carriage, laden 
with silver, gold and other precious things, besides 
600 prisoners more or less, between women, children 
and slaves." 

So they plodded back to San Lorenzo whence they 
had started on their piratical expedition. It affords a 



A STREET IN CRUCES 




BREAKING WAVES AT OLD PANAMA 



striking illus- 
tration of the 
strictly busi- 
ness methods 
of these pir- 
ates that be- 
fore reaching 
the castle 
Morgan or- 
dered a halt, 
and had every 
man searched 
for valuables, 
submitting 
himself to the 
inquisition. 
So thorough was the search that even the guns were 
shaken, upside down, lest precious stones might be 
concealed in their barrels. However the buccaneers 
came to jeer at Morgan's apparent fairness in being 
searched with the rest, and putting his personal pil- 
ferings into the common lot as a piece of duplicity. 
For the loot of the Panama expedition has been reck- 
oned at several millions of dollars, and indeed a town 
of that size, famous for wealth and at a period when 
the amassing of gold and jewels was a passion, should 
certainly have produced that much. But when it came 
to the vital operation of dividing the spoils the ordi- 
nary fighting men found that for their four months' 

campaign, they received 
about $100 apiece. 
"Which small sum," 
says the literary apothe- 
cary Esquemeling, who 
was ' ' buncoed ' ' with 
the rest, "they thought 
too little reward for so 
much labor and such 
huge and manifest dan- 
gers they had so often 
exposed their lives un- 
to. But Captain Mor- 
gan was deaf to all 
these and many other 
complaints of this kind, 
having designed in his 
mind to cheat them of 
as much as he could.". 



HOW MORGAN PLUNDERED HIS PIRATES 



97 



Henry Morgan was indeed a practi- 
cal pirate, who, had he but lived four 
hundred years later, could have made 
vastly more money out of a town of 
30,000 people by the mild devices of 
franchises and bonds, than he did out 
of Panama with murder, the rack, 
robbery and rapine for his methods. 
After setting the example of loyally 
putting his all into the common store, 
he assumed the duty of dividing that 
store. This accomplished to his lik- 
ing, and knowing that idleness breeds 
discontent, and that discontent is 
always hurtful to capital, he set his 
men to work pulling the Castle of San 
Lorenzo to pieces. While they were 
thus engaged, one dark night with 
favoring winds he hove anchor and 
with four ships, filled with his English 
favorites, and laden with the lion's share of the 
booty, he sailed away from Chagres and from bucca- 
neering forever. He left behind all the French, 
Dutch and mongrel pirates — those ancient and ex- 
perienced ones. He left them some of the poorer 
ships — much as an 
efficient gang of street 
railway looters leave 
some rusty rails and 
decrepit cars to a town 
they have looted — but 
saw to it that none 
was left that could 
possibly catch up with 
his fleet. 

So the deserted 
buccaneers first 
fought awhile among 
themselves, then dis- 
persed. Some in an 
amateurish way 
sacked the town of 
Keys in Cuba. Others 
went to Campeche 
and Honduras. Es- 
quemeling with a 
small band went up 
to Bocadel Toro, now 




OLD BELL AT EEMEDIOS, 1682 



embarrassing. 



the Panama headquarters of t!:e 
United Fruit Company, whence he 
made his way back to Europe. There 
he wrote his "History of the Bucca- 
neers," which became one of the 
world's "best sellers," and in which 
he gave his Captain Morgan "the 
worst of it" — a species of satisfaction 
which is often the only recourse of the 
literary man who gets tangled up with 
Big Business. 

As for Captain Morgan, he was 
made much of at Jamaica, where the 
crown's share of the proceeds of his 
piracy was cheerfully accepted by the 
governor. But in England there was 
some embarrassment, for there was no 
war with Spain and the complete 
destruction of a Spanish city by a 
force bearing British flags was at least 
So by way of showing its repentance 
and good intent the government announced its pur- 
pose to suppress buccaneering and all piracy, and 
to that end created Henry Morgan a baronet and 
put the commission in his hands — much as we have 




THE BEETLING CLIFFS OF THE UPPER CHAGRES 



98 



PANAMA AND THZ CANAL 




THE ROOTS REACH DOWN SEEKING FOR SOIL 

been accustomed to put politicians on our civil ser- 
vice commissions, and protected manufacturers on 
joAir tarifE boards. So as Sir Henry Morgan this 
'riiogt wholesale robber and murderer Central America 
fever knew ended his days in high respectability. 

While the ruins of Old Panama compare but un- 
;favorably with those of Porto Bello or San Lorenzo, 
their proximity to the city of Panama make them a 
favorite point of interest for tourists. Half a day is 
ample to give to the drive out and back and to the 
inspection of the ruins themselves. The extended 
area over which they are scattered testifies to the 
size of the obliterated city, while the wide spaces, 
destitute of any sign of occupation, which intervene 
between the remaining relics, shows clearly that the 
,greater part of the town must have been built of 
perishable materials easily swept away at the time 
of the fire, or slowly disintegrating during the flood 
of years that have since rolled by. The tower of 
the Cathedral of St. Augustine alone among the 
relics still remaining affords any suggestion of 
grandeur or even of architectural dignity. 

To reach the ruins you take a horse, a carriage or 
an automobile for a ride of about five miles over an 



excellent road 
laid and main- 
tained by the 
Republic of 
Panama. If 
you go by 
horseback the 
old trail which 
the pirates- 
used is still 
traceable and 
at low tide one 
can ride along 
the beach. For 
the majority 
the drive along 
the road, which 
should be 
taken in the 
early morning, 
is the simpler 
way, though 
there was 
promise in 
19 13 that within a few months a trolley line would 
still further simplify the trip. 

From Balboa, the Pacific opening of the Panama 
Canal, and the newest of the world's great ports, to 
the ruins of Old Panama, founded in 1609 and ob- 
literated by pirates in 1671, by trolley in two hours! 
Was ever the past more audaciously linked to the 
present? Were ever exhibits of the peaceful com- 
merce of today and the bloody raids of ancient 
times placed in such dramatic juxtaposition? 

The road to Old Panama runs through a peaceful 
grazing country, with a very few plantations. One 
or two country residences of prosperous Panamanians 
appear standing well back from the road, but signs of 
life and of industry are few. The country lies high, 
is open and free from jungle and in almost any 
North American state, lying thus close to a town of 
40,000 people and adjacent to a district in which the 
United States is spending some millions of dollars a 
month, would be platted in additions for miles 
around, and dotted with the signs of real estate 
dealers. But the Panamanian mind is not specula- 
tive, or at any rate soars little above the weekly 
lottery ticket. So all Uncle Samuel's disbursements 



THE SCENE OF MORGAN'S GREAT EXPLOIT 



99 



in the Zone have thus far produced nothing remotely 
resembUng a real estate boom. 

However as we turn off from the main road toward 
the sea and the square broken tower of the old 
cathedral, or Church of St. Augustine, with the 
ferns springing from the jagged top, and vines 
twisting out through the dumbly staring windows, 
real estate and "booms" seem singularly ignoble 
topics in the presence of this mute spectator of the 
agonies of a martyred people. For even the dulling 
mists of the in- 
terposing centu- 
ries, even our 
feeling that the 
Spaniards suf- 
fered only the an- 
guish and the tor- 
ments which they 
had themselves 
meted out to the 
real owners of the 
lands they had 
seized upon, can- 
not wholly blunt 
the sense of pity 
for the women 
and children, for 
the husbands and 
fathers in the city 
which fell under 
Morgan's blight. 
It would be no 
easy task to 
gather in the 
worst purlieus of 
any American 
city today a band 
so wholly lost to 
shame, to pity 
and to God as the 
rufhans who fol- 
lowed Morgan. 
What they did to 
the people on 
whom their hands 
reeking with 
blood were laid bluff near 

must be left to Photographing this scene is now prohibited 




the imagination. The only contemporary record 
of the sack was written by one of their own number 
to whom apparently such scenes had become com- 
monplace, for while his gorge rises at the contempla- 
tion of his own hard fortune in being robbed and 
deserted by his chief, he recounts the torture of men 
and the violation of women in a matter-of-fact way 
as though all in the day's work. 

Driving on we come to the arched bridge which 
formed the main entrance to the town in the day of its 

downfall. Sturdy 
it is still, though 
the public road 
no longer passes 
over it, defying 
the assaults of 
time and the 
more disintegrat- 
ing inroads of the 
tropical plants 
which insinuate 
themselves into 
every crevice, 
prying the stone 
apart with tender 
fingers ever har- 
dening. At once 
the bridge, none 
too wide for three 
to cross abreast, 
awakens wonder 
that no Horatius 
was in all the 
Spanish armies to 
keep the bridge 
as did he of an- 
cient Rome. But 
after all the rivu- 
let which today 
makes its sluggish 
way under the 
arch is no Tiber 
to hold the invad- 
ing army at bay. 
Perhaps it was 
bigger in Mor- 
gan's time; today 
it would be easily 



TORO POINT 
as a United States fort is to be erected here 



100 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




WHETHER THE TREE OR THE WALL IS STOUTER IS A 
PROBLEM " 

forded, almost leapt. At any rate no "Dauntless 
Three" like those Macaulay sung were there to stay 
the enrolling tide of foemen. 

Hardly have we passed the bridge than a massive 
vine-embedded ruin on the left of the road stands 
mute evidence that the Spaniards had forts, if they 
had but possessed the courage to defend them. This 
is the Casa Reale, or government house. Its walls 
of rubble masonry are full two feet thick and have 
the appearance of having been pierced for musketry. 
If the buccaneers had any artillery at all, which is 
doubtful, it was hardly heavy enough to have had 
any effect against such a wall. Secure within the 
Casa Reale such a handful of men as held the Alamo 
against the Mexicans could have resisted Morgan's 
men indefinitely. But the spirit was lacking. The 
stout wahs of the Casa Reale stand now as evidences 
of the character of the defenses the people of Panama 
had if they but had the pluck to use them. 



Continuing toward the sea the visitor next comes 
upon the ruins of the Cathedral, which are in so 
shattered a state as to justify the belief that either 
the invaders or the Spaniards themselves employed 
gunpowder to wreck so massive an edifice. The 
flames and the work of the vegetation could hardly 
have accomplished such complete destruction. The 
tower alone retains definite form, rising about fifty 
feet from a dense jungle, and lined within with vines 
and clinging trees that use the ancient walls as a 
support and hasten their disintegration in so doing. 
It is difficult even to trace the lines of the great 
church, so thoroughly have its walls been demolished. 
Some of the massive arches still stand all pendulous 
with vines. 

At the water's edge one still finds steps leading 
down into the sea, and the remains of the old paved 
road to which at high tide the boats could come with 
their cargoes of fish and country produce. If one 
happens to visit the spot at low tide the view looking 
seaward is as ugly as could well be imagined. The 
hard sand beach extends only to high water mark. 
Beyond that for more than a mile seaward extends a 
dismal range of black mud of about the consistency 
of putty. Near the shore it is seen to be full of 
round holes from which crawl unsightly worms and 
small crabs. E. C. Stedman puts its unsightly 
appearance in two lines: 

" The tide still ebbs a league from quay, 
The buzzards scour the empty bay." 

Along the strand still stand fragments of the old 
seawall, and at a considerable distance from the 
Cathedral ruins you come upon another large build- 
ing of which little more than the lower walls and the 
subterranean vaults still have form and coherence. 
The dungeon into which visitors usually make their 
way is peculiarly dark, damp and dismal, and the 
general air of ghoulishness is mightily enhanced by 
the myriads of bats that hang from the ceiling and 
whirl and whiz away when intruders light matches to 
study the moldering masonry. A most interesting 
feature of this crypt is the great roots of the trees and 
shrubs that sprung from seeds that had fallen into 
some crevice and found there soil enough to germi- 
nate, but not sufficient to support life as the plant 
grev/ larger. The roots twist and creep along the 
walls, reaching out for earth below as unerringly as 
a giant boa creeps sinuously through the jungle. 



CHAPTER VI 



REVOLUTIONS AND THE FRENCH REGIME 



HE history of the Isthmus from 
the fall of Old Panama to the 
time when the government of 
the United States, without any 
particular pomp or ceremony, 
took up the picks and shovels 
the French had laid down and 
went to work on the Canal, may 
be passed over here in the light- 
est and sketchiest way. It is of 
Panama of the Present, rather 
than Panama of the Past, that 
I have to tell even though that past be full of pic- 
turesque and racy incident. Curious enough is the 
way in which through all those centuries of lawless 
no-government, Spanish mis-government, and local 
self-government, tempered by annual revolutions, 
there appears always the idea that some day there 
will be a waterway across the neck of the conti- 
nent. It was almost as hard for the early Spaniards 
to abandon the idea that such a natural waterway 



*{^ 




M 




w 




L: 



existed as it has been in later years to make the 
trans-continental railroads understand that the 
American people intended to create such a strait. 

The search for the natural waterway had hardly 
been abandoned when discussion arose as to the 
practicability of creating an artificial one. In its 
earlier days this project encountered not only the 
physical obstacles which we had to overcome, but 
others springing from the rather exaggerated piety 
of the time. Yet it was a chaplain to Cortez who 
first suggested a canal to Philip II of Spain in words 
that have a good twentieth -century ring to them, 
though their form be archaic: " It is true." he wrote. 
"that mountains obstruct 
these passes, but if there be 
mountains there are 
also hands." That is the 
spirit in which 
Uncle Sam ap- 




SAN PABLO LOCK. IN FRENCH DAYS 
lOI 



102 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




PART OF THE SEA WALL AT PANAMA 



preached the Big Job. But when the sturdy chap- 
lain's appeal came to King Philip he referred it to the 
priests of his council, who ruled it out upon the scrip- 
tural injunction, "What God hath joined together 
let no man put asunder," and they were backed up 
by a learned prelate on the Isthmus, Fray Josef de 
Acosta, who averred, "No human power will suffice 
to demolish the most strong and impenetrable 
mountains, and solid rocks which God has placed 
between the two seas, and which sustain the fury 
of the two oceans. And when it would be to men 
possible it would in my opinion be very proper to 
fear the chastisement of heaven for wishing to cor- 
rect the works which the Creator with greatest de- 
liberation and foresight ordained in the creation of 
^his universe." 

Doubtless the Fray de Acosta was the more ortho- 
dox, but we like better the spirit of the cleric who 
held the somewhat difficult post of spiritual adviser 



to Cortez. His belief that "if there are mountains 
there are also hands" is good doctrine, and we can 
believe that the good father would have liked to have 
seen some of Col. Goethal's steam shovels biting 
into those mountains at five cubic yards a bite. 

It seems strange that the four canal routes over 
the respective merits of which the Senate of the 
United States was engaged in seemingly interminable 
wrangle only a few years ago — Nicaragua, Darien, 
Panama and Tehuantepec — should have been sug- 
gested by Cortez in the sixteenth century. Nearly 
250 years before the birth of the republic destined to 
dig the canal this stout explorer from old Spain laid 
an unerring finger upon the only routes which it 
could follow. Doubtless it was as well that no 
effort was made at the time, yet it would be unwise 
for us with smug twentieth-century self-sufficiency 
to assert that no other age than ours could have put 
the project through. Perhaps the labor and skill 



THE SCOTTISH SETTLEMENT IN PANAMA 



103 



that raised the mighty city of Palmyra, or built the 
massive aqueducts that in ruins still span the 
Roman Campagna, or carved the Colossi of the 
Egyptian desert, might have been equal to the 
Panama problem. 

In 1 8 1 4 the Spanish cortes ordered surveys made for 
a canal, but nothing came of it, and the great project 
lay quiescent as long as Spain's power in the Isthmus 
remained unshaken. More by the indifference of 
other nations than by any right of their own, the 
Spanish had assumed sovereignty over all of South 
and Central America. That they held the country 
by virtue of a papal bull — such as that may be — and 
by right of conquest is undeniable. But men begun 
to say that the Pope had given Spain something he 
never owned, while so far as conquest was concerned 
Morgan had taken from the Spanish all they ever 
won by force of arms on the Isthmus. He did not 
hold what he had taken because he was a pirate not 
a pioneer. 

The only serious effort to colonize in the Panama 
region by any people, save Spaniards, was the 
founding of a colony of Scotch Presbyterians, 
headed by one William Patterson, who had occupied 
a Scotch pulpit. Beside theology he must have 
known something of finance, for he organized, and 
was one of the first directors of, the Bank of England. 
His colonization project in Panama was broadly 
conceived, but badly executed. Taking the rich 



East India Company for a model he secured a fran- 
chise from Scotland, granting him a monopoly of 
Scottish trade in the Indies in return for an annual 
tribute of one hogshead of tobacco. Capitalizing 
his company for $600,000, he backed the shares with 
his reputation as a fotmder of the bank and saw 
the capital over-subscribed in London. But the 
success woke up his rivals. They worked on the 
King, persuaded him to denounce the action taken 
in Scotland and pushed a law through the English 
Parliament outlawing the Scotch company in Eng- 
land. In every country the people interested in the 
established companies fought the interloper who was 
trying to break into their profitable demesne. But 
the Scotch stuck to their guns. They rallied at 
first about Patterson as in later years the French 
flocked to the support of De Lesseps. Ships were 
built in Amsterdam, pistols were bought by whole- 
sale, brandy and bibles were both gathered in large 
quantities, and in 1768 volunteers were called for to 
join the expedition. Every settler was promised 
fifty acres of agricultural land and one fifty-foot 
town lot. 

Politics had bothered Patterson at the outset by 
arraying the English against the Scotch. Now 
religion added to the dissension. The church and 
the kirk factions — or the Episcopalians and the 
Presbyterians — fell afoul of each other. The kirk 
carried the executive council and Patterson, the 




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THE PELICANS IN THE BAY OE PANAMA 



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PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



only man who knew anything about the expedition, 
was permitted to accompany it only as an ordinary 
settler. Graft stepped in and though the colonists 
paid for six months' provisions they discovered when 
far out at sea that they had but enough for two. 
Moreover nobody on the ships knew where they 
were going to settle, for they sailed under sealed 
orders. When these were opened • and the tidings 



Spaniards from the land. But illness held the 900 
colonists gripped, and malaria, the ruling pest of 
those tropical shores, is not wont to stimulate a 
militant spirit. They had settled on the Atlantic 
coast in the Darien region, as far from the rich 
traffic of the East Indies as though they were in 
their old Caledonian homes. Curiously enough 
they made no effort to get across to the Pacific, 





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ROAD FROM PANAMA TO LA BOCA 



spread that Panama and not the East Indies was the 
destination, there was renewed distrust and dis- 
affection. 

The story of this luckless enterprise is short and 
dismal. On the voyage out forty-four of the adven- 
turers died, and after landing the deaths continued 
with melancholy regularity. They were spared 
trouble with the Indians who, on learning that they 
were no friends to the Spaniards, welcomed them 
warmly, and urged them to join in driving the 



whence only could trade be conducted, but perhaps 
that was as well, for the Spaniards though much 
broken by the recent invasion of the buccaneers 
would have resisted such an advance to their utmost. 
So the unhappy colonists of New Caledonia found 
themselves on a miasmatic bit of land, remote from 
anything like civilization, with no sign of trade to 
engage their activities, an avowed enemy at their 
back and surrounded by Indians, the price of whose 
friendship was a declaration of war upon the Span- 



DISASTER BESET THE SCOTCH COLONISTS 



105 




Photo by Underwood tt UndCTWOod 

THE CITY PARK OF COLON 

iards. To make matters worse, the King issued a 
proclamation prohibiting all governors of English 
colonies in the West Indies from giving them aid 
or comfort, denouncing them as outlaws. 

Disheartened, the first colony broke up and 
sailed away, just when the Company was dis- 
patching two more ships from Scotland. The 
fugitives sailed for New York, and on one of their 
ships carrying 250 men, 150 are said to have died 
before reaching that port. As for the new colonists, 
they reached the deserted fort of St. Andrew, and 
saw the mute evidences of death and despair. 
From the Indians they learned the details of the 
story, and a great majority voted to sail away with- 
out further delay. Twelve however elected to stop, 
and being landed with a generous supply of provi- 
sions, kept foothold in the colony until the third 
expedition arrived. This consisted of four ships, 
which had left the Clyde with about 
1300 colonists. About 160 however 
died on the way out, and the survivors 
were mightily distressed when instead 
of finding a thriving colony of a thou- 
sand or more awaiting them, they dis- 
covered only twelve Scotchmen living 
miserably in huts with the Indians. 

The imaginative prospectus writer 
seems to have been no less active and 
engaging at that time than in these 
days of mining promotions, and many 
of the new colonists had come in the 
expectation of finding a land watered 
by springs, the waters of which were 
"as soft as milk and very nourish- 
ing," a land wherein people lived 150 



years, and to die at 125 was to be cut off in the 
flower of one's youth. What they found was twelve 
haggard Scotchmen in a primeval forest, ill-fed, un- 
clothed, dependent largely on the charity of the In- 
dians, and who, so far from looking confidently 
forward to an hundred more years of life cried 
dolorously to the newcomers, "Take us hence or we 
perish." 

The new colonists, however, had pluck. Stifling 
their disappointment, they disembarked and settled 
down to make the colony a success. According to 
the records they had brought five forces for disin- 
tegration and failure along with them — namely four 
ministers and a most prodigious lot of brandy. The 
ancient chroniclers do not say upon which of these 
rests the most blame for the disasters that followed. 
,The ministers straightway set up to be rulers of 
the colony. When stockades should be a-building 
all were engaged in erecting houses for them. As 
but two could preach in the space of one Sunday, 
they designated two holy days weekly whereon they 
preached such resounding sermons that "the regular 
service frequently lasted twelve hours without any 
interruption." Nor would they do other work than 
sermonizing. As for the brandy, all the records of 
the colony agree that much too much of it and of 
the curious native drinks was used by all, and that 
the ministers themselves were wont to reinvigorate 
themselves after their pulpit exertions by mighty 
potations. 

Yet the colony was not wholly without a certain 




CHILDREN IN A NATIVE HUT 



io6 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



sturdy self reliance. Seeing it persist despite all 
obstacles, the Spaniards dispatched a force of sol- 
diers from Panama to destroy it. Campbell 




THE WATER FROxNT OF PANAMA 

waylaid them in the jungle and overthrew them. 
Then the King of Spain became alarmed and sent 
■eight Spanish men-of-war to make an end of these 
interlopers — the King of England and Scotland 
coldly leaving them to 
their fate. But they 
fought so bravely that 
in the end the Spanish, 
though their fleet had 
been reenforced by 
three ships, were 
obliged to grant them 
capitulation with the 
honors of war, and 
they " marched out 
with their colors fly- 
ing and drums beat- 
ing, together with arms 
and ammunition, and 
with all their goods." 

So ended the effort 
to make of Darien an 
outpost of Scotland. 

In the effort 2000 lives and over £200,000 had been 
lost. Macaulay explains it by saying, "It was 
folly to suppose that men born and bred within 
ten degrees of the Arctic circle would enjoy excel- 
lent health within ten degrees of the equator." But 
Lord Macaulay forgot, to reckon on the hostility of 



the East India Company, whose monopoly was 
threatened, the plenteousness of the brandy and 
the zeal of the four ministers. 

After the expulsion 
of the Scotch, the dom- 
ination of the Isthmus 
by the Spaniards was 
never again seriously 
menaced by any foreign 
power. All the vast 
South and Central 
American domain was 
lost to Spain, not by 
the attacks of her Eu- 
ropean neighbors, but 
by the revolt of their 
people against a gov- 
ernment which was at 
one time inefficient 
and tyrannical. The French Revolution and the 
Napoleonic upheaval in Europe found their echo in 
South America, where one after another the various 
states threw off the Spanish yoke. But Panama, 




THE WATER GATE OF PANAMA 

then known as Terra Firma, was slow to join in the 
revolutionary activities of her neighbors. It is true 
that in 1 8 12 the revolutionists became so active in 
Bogota, the capital of the province, that the seat of 
government was temporarily removed to Panama 
City. But the country as a whole was sluggish. 



THE REPEATED REVOLUTIONS OP PANAMA 



107 



Four classes of citizens, European Spaniards, their 
sons, born on the Isthmus, and called Creoles, the 
Indians and the negroes, made up the population 
and were too diverse by birth and nature to unite 
for any patriotic purpose. Accordingly through 
the period of breaking shackles, which made Bolivar 
famous the world over and created the great group 
of republics in South America, the state of which the 
Isthmus was a part remained quiescent. In 18 14 
revolutionists vainly tried to take Porto Bello, but 
that famous fortress which never resisted a foreign 
foe successfully, beat off the patriots. Panama 
was at this time in high favor at Madrid because of 
its loyalty and the Cortes passed resolutions for the 
building of a canal, but went no further. But all 
the time the revolutionary leaven was working be- 
neath the surface. In 1821 a field marshal from 
Spain, charged with the task of crushing out the 
revolution in Colombia and Ecuador, stripped 
Porto Bello, San Lorenzo and Panama of the greater 
part of their garrisons and took them to Guayaquil. 
By bribes and promises the local patriots persuaded 
the few soldiers remaining to desert and, with no 
possibility of resistance, the independence of Panama 
from Spain was declared. Early in 1822 Panama 



became the Department of the Isthmus in the 
Republic of Colombia. 

It would be idle to describe, even to enumerate, all 
the revolutions which have disquieted the Isthmus 
since it first joined Colombia in repudiating the 
Spanish rule. They have been as thick as insects 
in the jungle. No physical, social or commercial 
ties bound Panama to Colombia at any time during 
their long association. A mountain range divided 
the two countries and between the cities of Panama 
and Bogota there was no communication by land. 
In foreign commerce the province of Panama ex- 
ceeded the parent state, while the possession of the 
shortest route across the Isthmus was an asset of 
which both Bogotans and Panamanians keenly 
realized the value. 

Revolutions were annual occurrences, sometimes 
hard fought, for the people of Panama have plenty 
of courage in the field; sometimes ended with the 
first battle. The name of the parent state has been 
sometimes Colombia, sometimes New Granada; 
Panama has at times been independent, at others a 
state of the Federation of New Granada ; at one time 
briefly allied with Ecuador and Venezuela. In 1846 
the volume of North American travel across the 




i'Uoio Oy Under wood o: OndcTwood 



ENTRANCE TO MT. HOPE CEMETERY 



lo8 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



Isthmus became so great that the United States 
entered into a treaty with New Granada in which we 
guaranteed to keep the Isthmus open for transit. 
That and the building, by American capital of the 
Panama Railroad, made us a directly interested 
party in all subsequent revolutions. Of these there 
were plenty. President Theodore Roosevelt de- 
fending in 1903 the diplomatic methods by which 
he "took" Panama, enumerated no fewer than 
fifty-three revolutions in the fifty-seven years that 
had elapsed since the signing of the treaty. He 
summed up the situation thus: 

"The above is only a partial list of the revolutions, 
rebellions, insurrections, riots, and other outbreaks 
that have occurred during the period in question; 
yet they number fifty-three for the last fifty-seven 
years. It will be noted that one of them lasted 
nearly three years before it was quelled ; another for 

nearly a year. In short, 
the experience of nearly 



half a century has shown Colombia to be utterly 
incapable of keeping order on the Isthmus. Only 
the active interference of the United States has en- 
abled her to preserve so much as a semblance of 
sovereignty. Had it not been for the exercise by 
the United States of the police power in her interest, 
her connection with the Isthmus would have been 
severed long ago." 

We are apt to think of these revolutions as mere 
riots, uprisings somewhat after the sort of Fal- 
staff's seven men in buckram, and savoring much of 
the opera bouffe. Such, to a great extent they were, 
and curiously enough none of them, except for its 
outcome, was less serious or dignified than the final 
one which won for Panama its freedom from Co- 
lombia, and for the United States the ten miles' 
strip across the ocean called the Canal Zone. That 
was perhaps the only revolution in history by which 
was created a new and sovereign-state, and the issue 
of which was finally determined by the inability of a 




CATHEDRAL PLAZA, PANAMA 
The building in the center was by turns the French and the American Administration Building 



EARLY PROJECTORS OF A PANAMA CANAL 



109 




AVENIDA CENTRALE 
The building with the rounded corner balcony is the American Consulate 



commanding general to pay the fares for his troops 
over forty-eight miles of railroad. Of that, how- 
ever, more hereafter. 

Of course, during all the revolutions and counter 
revolutions the idea of the canal had steadily grown. 
England at one time took a mild interest in it and 
sent one Horatio Nelson to look over the land. 
The young naval officer's health failed him and he 
returned to become in later years the hero of Trafal- 
gar and the Nile. Later, the great German scientist. 
Baron von Humboldt, in the course of a famous 
voyage to South America, spent some time on the 
Isthmus, and wrote much of its natural features, 
enumerating nine routes for a canal including of 
course the one finally adopted. Louis Napoleon, 
though never on the Isthmus, dreamed out the possi- 
bilities of a canal when he was a prisoner in the fortress 



of Ham. Had he succeeded in maintaining Max- 
imilian on the throne of Mexico he might have made 
the Isthmian history very different. Among our 
own people, De Witt Clinton, builder of the Erie 
Canal, and Henry Clay, were the first to plan for an 
American canal across the Isthmus, but without 
taking practical steps to accomplish it. 

Canal schemes, however, were almost as numerous 
as revolutions in the years preceding 1903. Darien, 
Panama, Tehuantepec, Nicaragua have all been 
considered at various times, and the last named for 
some time was a very close second to Panama in 
favor. There is reason to believe that the govern- 
ment of the United States deliberately "nursed" the 
Nicaragua project in order to exact better terms 
from Colombia, which held the Panama route at an 
exorbitant figure. 



no 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




ANCON HILL AT SUNSET 

The honor of actually inaugurating the canal 
work must ever belong to the French, as the honor 
of completing it will accrue to us. It is not the first 
time either that the French and the Americans 
worked together to accomplish something on this 
continent. Yorktown and Panama ought to be re- 
garded as chapters of the story of a long partner- 
ship. In 1876 Ferdinand de Lesseps, with the 
glory of having dug 
the Suez Canal still 
untarnished, became 
interested in the Pan- 
ama situation as the 
result of representa- 
tions made by a French 
engineer, Napoleon B. 
Wyse. Lieut. Wyse 
had made a survey of 
the Isthmus and, in 
connection with Gen. 
Stephen Turr, a Hun- 
garian, had secured a 
concession from Co- 
lombia to run ninety- 
nine years after the 
completion of the 
canal, with a payment 
to Colombia of $250,- 
000 annually after the 



seventy-fifth year had 
expired. This fran- 
chise was transferable 
by sale to any other 
private company but 
could not be sold to 
a government — a pro- 
viso which later com- 
plicated greatly the 
negotiations with the 
United States. 

De Lesseps was in- 
stantly interested. 
The honors which had 
been heaped upon him 
as the result of his 
successful operation at 
Suez were very grate- 
ful to him. The 
French temperament is particularly avid of praise 
and public honor. Moreover, he sincerely be- 
lieved in the practicability of the plan and, neither 
at the outset or later, did any one fully enlighten 
him as to the prodigious obstacles to be encoun- 
tered. Lieut. Wyse had interested a group of 
financiers who scented in the scheme a chance for 
great profits, and to their project the name of De 
Lesseps was all important. For advertising pur- 
poses it had the value of that of Roosevelt today. To 




Photo by Undtirwood <t- Underwood 

ABANDONED FRENCH MACHINERY ON THE CANAL 



SEA LEVEL OR LOCK CANAL 



III 



launch the project successfully money was needed, 
and this they found. Some sort of professional ap- 
proval, in addition to the De Lesseps name was de- 
sirable and this 
they provided 
by calling to- 
gether an In- 
ternational 
Scientific Con- 
gress at Paris 
to discuss the 
great imder- 
taking. One 
hundred and 
sixty-four dele- 
gates were 
present, of 
whom forty- 
two were engi- 
neers and only 
eleven Ameri- 
cans. It was 
charged at the 
time that the 
congress was 
more political 
than scientific 
and further- 
more that it 
was "packed" 
so as to regis- 
ter only the 
will of De Les- 
seps, who in 
turn recom- 
mended in the 
main such 
measures as 
the syndicate 
putting up the 
money desired. 
However, the 
Congress gave 

a quasi-public and scientific appearance to a project 
which was really conceived only as a money-making 
proposition by a group of financiers. There was 
and has since been bitter criticism of the vote by 
which the Congress declared for a sea-level canal — ■ 



a decision which the French themselves were forced 
to reverse and which the United States definitely 
abandoned early in its work. In the French Con- 




OVERWHELMED BY THE JUNGLE 

gress there were less than lOO of the 164 delegates 
present when the vote was taken. Seventy-eight 
voted for sea-level and a majority of the engineers 
voted against it. 

In my description of the canal work the funda- 



112 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




A LOTTERY TICKET SELLER 



mental dif- 
ferences be- 
tween the 
respective 
advantages 
of the sea- 
level and the 
lock type of 
canal will 
continually 
reappear. At 
this moment 
it is enough 
to say that 
the obstacles 
to the sea- 
level plan 
are to be 
found in 
Culebra Hill 
and the 
C h a gr e s 
River. In 
the lock type 
of canal the cut at Culebra is 495 feet below the 
crest of Gold Hill and 364 feet below the crest of 
Contractor's Hill opposite. The top width of this 
cut is over half a mile. To carry the canal to 
sea-level would mean a further cut of eighty-five 
feet with vastly en- 
hanced -\ liability of 
slides. As for the 
Chagres River, that 
tricky stream crosses 
the line of the old 
French canal twenty- 
three times. As the 
river is sometimes three 
or four feet deep one 
day and nearly fifty 
feet deep at the same 
point the next — a tur- 
bid, turbulent, roaring 
torrent, carrying trees, 
huts and boulders 
along with it — the 
canal could obviously 
not exist with the 



Chagres in its path. The French device was to dam 
the stream some miles above the point at which the 
canal first crossed it and lead it away through an 
artificial channel into the Pacific instead of into the 
Atlantic, where it now empties. This task the Ameri- 
can engineers have avoided by damming the Chagres 
at Gatun, and making a great lake eighty-five feet 
above the level of the sea through which the canal 
extends and which covers and obliterates the 
twenty-three river crossings which embarrassed the 
engineers of the sea-level canal. 

It is fair to say, however, that today (i9i3),with 
the lock canal approaching completion, there is a 
very large and intelligent body of Americans who 
still hold that the abandonment of the sea-level 
plan was an error. And it is a curious fact that 
while De Lesseps was accused of "packing" his 
congress so as to vote down the report for a lock 
canal which a majority of the engineers voting 
favored, Roosevelt, after a majority of his "Inter- 
national Board of Consulting Engineers" had voted 
for a sea-level canal, set aside their recommendation 
and ordered the lock type instead. 

Immediately after the adjournment of the Inter- 
national Congress at Paris the stock of the canal 
company, $60,000,000 as a first issue, was offered 
to the investing public. It was largely over-sub- 
scribed. The French are at once a thrifty and an 
emotional people. Their thrift gives them instant 




<*#9" 





MACHINERY SEEMINGLY AS HOPELESS AS THIS WAS RECOVERED AND SET TO WORK 



A RELIC OF THE FRENCH DAYS 



113 




THE POWER OF THE JUNGLE 
Note how the tree has grown around and into this steel dump car at San Pablo 



114 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



command of such 
sums of ready 
cash as astound 
financiers of 
other nations. 
Their emotional- 
ism leads them 
■ to support any 
great national 
enterprise that 
promises glory 
for La Patrie, 
has in it a touch 
of romance and 
withal seems eco- 
nomically safe. 
The canal enter- 
prise at the out- 
set met all these 
conditions, and 
the commanding figure of De Lesseps at its head, 
the man who had made Africa an island and who 
dogmatically declared, "the Panama Canal will be 
more easily begun, finished and maintained than 
the Suez Canal," lured the francs from their hiding 
places in woolen stockings or under loose hearth 
stones. 

It has been the practice of many writers upon the 
canal to ridicule the unsuccessful effort of the French 
to complete it; to expatiate upon the theatrical dis- 
play which attended their earlier operations, and 
the reckless extravagance which attended the period 
when the dire possibility of failure first appeared to 
their vision; to overlook the earnest and effective 




LA rOLIE DINGLER 
This house, built by the French for $150,000, was sold for $25.00 by the Americans 



work done by the 
Frenchmen ac- 
tually on the 
Isthmus while 
riveting atten- 
tion on the black- 
mailers and para- 
sites in Paris who 
were destroying 
the structure at 
its very founda- 
tions. It is sig- 
nificant that none 
of the real work- 
ers on the canal 
do this. Talk 
with the engi- 
neers and you 
will find them 
enthusiastic over 
the engineering work done by the French. Those 
sturdy, alert Americans who are now putting 
the Big Job through will take pains to give 
their predecessors the fullest credit for work 
done, for dirt moved, for surveys made and for 
machinery designed — a great lot of it is in use on 
the line today, including machines left exposed in the 
jungle twenty years. Hundreds of their buildings 
are still in use. If, after listening to the honest and 
generous praise expressed by our engineers, the visitor 
will go out to the cemetery of Mount Hope, near 
Cristobal, and read the lines on the headstones of 
French boys who came out full of hope and ambition 
to be cut down at twenty-two, twenty-five — all 




NEAR THE PACIFIC ENTRANCE TO THE CANAL 
The suction dredge is an inheritance from the French and still working 



SOME OF THE FINISHED WORK OF THE FRENCH 



115 



boyish ages — he will reflect that it is ill to laugh 
because the forlorn hope does not carry the breast- 
works, but only opens the way for the main army. 
And there are many little French graveyards scat- 
tered about the Isthmus which make one who comes 
upon them unawares feel that the really vital thing 
about the French connection with the canal was not 
that the first blast which it had been prepared to 
celebrate with some pomp failed to explode, or that 
the young engineers did not understand that cham- 



largely by our force in carrying material for the 
Gatun dam. At the Pacific entrance they had dug 
a narrow channel three miles long which we are still 
using. We paid the French company $40,000,000 
for all its rights on the Isthmus. There are various 
rumors as to who got the money. Some, it is 
believed, never went far from New York, for with all 
their thrift the French are no match for our high 
financiers. But whoever got the money we got a 
good bargain. The estimate of our own commission 





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WHERE THE FRENCH DID THEIR BEST WORK 
The greatest amount of excavations by the French was in Culebra Cut 



pagne mixed but badly with a humid and malarial 
climate, but that the flower of a great and generous 
nation gave their lives in a struggle with hostile 
nature before science had equipped man with the 
knowledge to make the struggle equal. 

Today along a great part of our canal line the 
marks of the French attainments are apparent. 
From Limon Bay, at the Atlantic end of the canal, 
our engineers for some reason determined upon an 
entirely new line for our canal, instead of following 
the French waterway, which was dug for seven miles 
to a depth of fifteen feet, and for eight miles further, 
seven feet deep. This canal has been used very 



in 191 1 values the physical property thus trans- 
ferred at $42,799,826. 

Bad luck, both comic and tragic, seemed to attend 
the French endeavors. Count De Lesseps, with a 
national fondness for the dramatic, arranged two 
ceremonies to properly dignify the actual beginning 
of w^ork upon the canal. The first was to be the 
breaking of ground for the Pacific entrance, which 
was to be at the mouth of the Rio Grande River in 
the Bay of Panama. A distinguished company 
gathered on the boat chartered for the occasion at 
Panama, and there was much feasting, speaking and 
toasting. Every one was so imbued with enthusiasm 



Ii6 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




AN OLD SPANISH CHURCH 
This edifice, still standing at Nata, is said to be the oldest church in Panama 



that no one thought of so material a thing as the tide. 
On the Pacific coast the tide rises and fahs twenty 
feet or more, and while the guests were emptying 
their glasses the receding tide was emptying the 
bay whither they were bound. When they arrived 
they found that nearly two miles of coral rock and 
mud flats separated them from the shore where the 



historic sod was to be turned. Ac- 
cordingly, excavation was begun pro 
forma in a champagne box filled with 
earth on the deck of the ship. The 
little daughter of De Lesseps dealt 
the first blow of the pick, followed 
by representatives of Colombia. To 
complete the ceremony the Bishop 
of Panama gravely blessed the work 
thus auspiciously begun, and the 
canal builders steamed back to 
Panama. 

Later, the same party assembled 
to witness the first blast at Culebra 
— for the French made the first attack 
on that redoubtable fortress, which 
after the lapse of thirty-five years is 
stubbornly resisting our American 
sappers and miners. But after due 
preparations, including wine, the fair 
hand of Mile. Ferdinande De Lesseps 
pressed the button — and nothing 
happened. Some fault in the connections made the 
electric spark impotent, and the chroniclers of the 
time do not record exactly when the blast was actually 
fired. But in the official canal paper the ceremony 
was described as "perfectly successful," and the 
reporter added that picturesque detail which Koko 
said ' ' imparts an artistic verisimilitude to an other- 




fftuio oy L ndurwuod S: L'l^a 



JUNCTURE OF FRENCH AND AMERICAN CANALS 
The American Canal is the wider, and affords the more direct route to the sea 



THE FINANCIAL ABERRATIONS OF DE LESSEPS 



117 




PART OF THE TOLL OF LIFE 
This cemetery on the westerly slope of Ancon Hill is one of the Zone's pathetic spots 



wise bald and uninteresting statement of fact," by 
saying that the rocks were "much less resistant 
than we had expected." 

These needless ceremonies and the false reports 
which attended them were merely what in our cyni- 
cal age and nation are called press-agent "stunts," 
and were necessitated by the need for interesting 
the French people in the work, lest they let the mar- 
ket for the shares slump. They were early symp- 
toms of the evil that culminated in the revelations of 
blackmail and forced tribute paid the French press 
when the final collapse was impending and inevit- 
able. 

De Lesseps indeed was a master in the art of 
"working the press," and had he confined his ac- 
tivities to that, without interfering with his engi- 
neers, history might have told a different story of 
his canal management. But lest doubt should seize 
upon would-be. investors, he continually cut down 



the estimates of his engineers, and issued flamboyant 
proclamations announcing triumphs that had not 
been won and prophesying a rate of progress that 
never could be attained. When his very capable 
Technical Commission, headed by Col. George M. 
Totten, the builder of the Panama Railroad, esti- 
mated the total cost of the canal at $168,600,000, he 
took the report to his cabin on shipboard and there 
arbitrarily, with no possible new data, lopped off 
about $37,000,000. Even at that, he calmly cap- 
italized his company at 600,000,000 francs or $120,- 
000,000, though his own estimate of the cost of the 
canal exceeded that amount by more than $12,000,- 
000. One-half of his capital stock or $60,000,000 
the Count had reserved for the* United States, but 
sold not a dollar's worth. The $60,000,000 first 
offered in France was, however, eagerly subscribed. 
Of course it was wholly insufficient. 
We know, what the unfortunate French investors 



Ii8 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




P}ioto by Underwood & Underwood 



THE ANCON HOSPITAL GROUNDS 
The beauty of the grounds is due to early French planning 



riers of disease 
germs was not 
dreamed of. Be- 
yond building ex- 
cellent hospitals 
for the sick, some 
of which we still 
use, and dosing 
both sick and well 
liberally with qui- 
nine, they had no 
plan of campaign 
against "Yellow 
Jack." As a re- 
sult, death stalked 
grimly among 
them, and the sto- 
ries written of his 
ravages are ghast- 
ly. On the south 
side of Ancon 
Hill, where the 
quarry has gashed 
the hillside, stood, 

could not, and their directors probably did not know, until recently, a large frame house, built for Jules 

that the canal could never be built by a private Dingier, first director-general of canal work. It 

company seeking profit. Neither 

could it be built by private contract, 

as we discovered after some discour- 
aging experiences of our own. The 

French builders were at the mercy of 

the stock market. A hurtful rumor, 

true or false, might at any time shut 

off their money supplies. Experience 

has pretty thoroughly demonstrated 

that the confidence of the investing 

public cannot long be maintained by 

false reports or futile promises, but 

both of these devices the French 

worked until the inevitable catas- 
trophe. 

Disease on the Isthmus cooperated 

with distrust in Paris to bring about 

failure. The French in 1880 knew 

nothing of the modern scientific sys- 
tems for checking yellow-fever con-' 

tagion and the spread of malaria. a sunken railroad 

The part mosquitoes play as car- Nine feet below the boat is the roadbed of the old Panama railroad 






YELLOW FEVERS' TOLL OF FRENCH LIVES 



119 




The low houses were built by the French : all screening added 
by Americans 

cost $150,000, though perhaps worth a third of 
that sum, and was caUed "La FoHe Dingier." But 
it was a rather tragic folly for poor Dingier, for be- 
fore he had fairly moved into it his wife, son and 
daughter died of yellow fever and he returned to Paris 
to die too of a broken heart. His house, in which 
he anticipated such happiness, became a smallpox 
hospital, and was finally sold for $25 with the stip- 
tilation that the purchaser remove it. 

A dinner was given M. Henri Boinne, secretary- 
general of the company. Some one remarked that 
there were thirteen at the table, whereupon the 
guest of honor remarked gaily that as he was the 
last to come he would have to pay for all. In two 
weeks he was dead — ^yellow fever. Others at the 
dinner followed him. Of the members of one sur- 
veying party on the upper waters of the Chagres — a 
region I myself visited without a suggestion of ill 
effects — every one, twenty-two in all, were pros- 
trated by disease and ten died. Bunau-Varilla, 
whose name is closely linked with the canal, says: 
"Out of every one hundred individuals arriving on 
the Isthmus, I can say without exaggeration that 
only twenty have been able to remain at their posts 
at the working stations, and even in that number 



many who were able to present an appearance of 
health had lost much of their courage." 

Col. Gorgas tells of a party of eighteen young 
Frenchmen who came to the Isthmus, all but one of 
whom died within a month. The Mother Superior 
of the nursing sisters in the French hospital at Ancon 
lost by fever twenty-one out of twenty-four sisters 
who had accompanied her to the Isthmus. 

How great was the total loss of French lives can 
only be guessed. The hospital records show that at 
Ancon, 1041 patients died of yellow fever. Col. 
Gorgas figures that as many died outside the hos- 
pital. All the French records are more or less in- 
complete and their authenticity doubtful because 
apprehension for the tender hopes and fears of the 
shareholders led to the suppression of unpleasant 
facts. The customary guess is that two out of 
every three Frenchmen who went to the Isthmus 
died there. Col. Gorgas, who at one time figures 
the total loss during the French regime at 16,500, 
recently raised his estimate to 22,000, these figures 
of course including negro workmen. Little or no 



I20 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



effort was made to induce sanitary living, as under 
the Americans, and so ignorant were the French — as 
indeed all physicians were at that time— of the causes 
of the spread of yellow fever, that they set the legs 
of the hospital beds in shallow pans of water to 
keep the ants from creeping to the beds. The ants 
were stopped, but the water bred hosts of wrigglers 
from which came the deadly stegomyia mosquito, 
which carries the yellow-fever poison from the patient 
to the well person. Had the hospital been designed 
to spread instead of to cure disease its managers 
could not 
have planned 
better. 

It is a curi- 
ous fact that, 
in a situation 
in which the 
toll of death 
is heaviest, 
man is apt to 
• be most reck- 
less and riot- 
ous in his 
pie asure s. 
The old drink- 
ing song of 
the English 
guardsmen 
beleaguered 

during the Indian mutiny voices the almost univer- 
sal desire of strong men to flaunt a gay defiance in 
the face of death: 

"Stand! Stand to your glasses steady, 

'Tis all we have left to prize, 
One cup to the dead already, 

Hurrah, for the next that dies". 

Wine, wassail and, I fear, women were much in 
evidence during the hectic period of the French 
activities. The people of the two Isthmian towns 
still speak of it as the temps de luxe. Dismal thrift 
was banished and extravagance was the rule. 
Salaries were prodigious. Some high officials were 
paid from $50,000 to $100,000 a year with houses, 
carriages, traveling expenses and uncounted inci- 
dentals. Expenditures for residences were lavish, 
and the nature of the structures still standing shows 




NEGRO QUARTERS, FRENCH TOWN OF EMPIRE 
Paving and sanitary arrangements due to American regime 



that graft was the chief, factor in the cost. The 
director-general had a $40,000 bath-house, and a 
private railway car costing $42,000 — which is cur- 
iously enough almost exactly $1000 for each mile of 
the railroad it traversed. The hospital buildings at 
Colon cost $1,400,000 and one has but to look at; 
them today to wonder how even the $400,000 was' 
spent. 

The big graft that finally was one of the prime 
factors in wrecking the company was in Paris, but 
enough went on in Colon and Panama to make those 

two towns as 
full of easy 
money as a 
mining camp 
after a big 
strike. The 
pleasures of 
such a society 
are not re- 
fined. Gam- 
bling and 
drinking were 
the less seri- 
ous vices. A 
French com- 
mentator of 
the time re- 
marks, "Most 
of the com- 
mercial business of Panama is transacted standing 
and imbibing cocktails — always the eternal cocktail I 
Afterward, if the consumer had the time and money 
to lose, he had only to cross the hall to find himself 
in a little room, crowded with people where roulette 
was going on. Oh this roulette, how much it has 
cost all grades of canal employees! Its proprietor 
must make vast profits. Admission is absolutely free ;. 
whoever wishes may join in the play. A demo- 
cratic mob pushes and crowds around the table. 
One is elbowed at the same time by a negro, almost 
in rags, anxiously thrusting forward his ten sous, 
and by a portly merchant with his pockets stuffed 
with piasters and bank notes". 

These towns, which bought and consumed French, 
champagnes and other wines by the shipload, could 
not afford to build a water system. Water was- 
peddled in the streets by men carrying great jars,. 



THE VALUE OF THE FRENCH WORK 



121 



or conducting carts with tanks. There were mil- 
lions for roulette, poker and the lottery, but nothing 
for sewers or pavements and during the wet season 
the people, natives and French both, waded ankle 
deep in filth which would have driven a blooded 
Berkshire hog from his sty. When from these man- 
created conditions of drink and dirt, disease was 
bred and men died like the vermin among which 
they lived, they blamed the climate, or the Chagres 
River. 

Amidst it all the work went on. So much stress 
has been laid upon the riot in the towns that one 
forgets the patient digging out on the hills and in 
the jungle. In 1912 the Secretary of the United 
States Canal Commission estimated the amount of 
excavation done by the French, useful to our canal, 
at 29,709,000 cubic yards worth $25,389,000. That 
by no means represented all their work, for our 



shift in the line of the canal made much of their 
excavation valueless. Between Gold Hill and Con- 
tractor's Hill in the Culebra Cut, where our struggle 
with the obstinate resistance of nature has been 
fiercest, the French cut down 161 feet, all of it 
serviceable to us. Their surveys and plats are inval- 
uable, and their machinery, which tourists seeing 
some pieces abandoned to the jungle condemn in 
the lump, has been of substantial value to us both 
for use and for sale. 

But under the conditions as they found them, the 
French could never have completed the canal. Only 
a government could be equal to that task. Presi- 
dent Roosevelt found to his own satisfaction at 
least that neither private contract nor civilian man- 
agement was adequate. Most emphatically, if the 
desire for profit was to be the sole animating force 
the canal could never be built at all. When the 




FILTH THAT WOULD DRIVE A BERKSHIRE FROM HIS STY 
A typical scene in the negro quarters of Colon during the period of French activity in Panama 



122 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Photo t)y Undent ood at 1 f 



CANAL VALLEY NEAR PEDRO MIGUEL 
Through the line of hills in the background extends the deepest part of the Culebra Cut 



discovery that the canal enterprise would never be a 
■"big bonanza" dawned on the French stockholders 
distrust was rapidly succeeded by panic. Vainly 
-did De Lesseps repeat his favorite formula, "The 
■canal will be built." Vainly did the officers of the 
■company pay tribute to the blackmailers that sprung 
up on every side — journalists, politicians, dis- 
charged employees, every man who knew a weak 
point in the company's armor. Reorganizations, 
new stock issues, changes of plan, appeals for gov- 
■ernment aid, bond issues, followed one after another. 
The sea-level canal was abandoned and a lock canal 
substituted. After repeated petitions the French 
Chamber of Deputies, salved with some of the 



spoil J authorized an issue of lottery bonds and 
bankruptcy was temporarily averted. A new com- 
pany was formed but the work languished, just 
enough in fact being done to keep the concession 
alive. After efforts to enlist the cooperation of the 
United States, the company in despair offered to 
sell out altogether to that government, and after 
that proffer the center of interest was transferred 
from Paris to Washington. 

The French had spent in all about $260,000,000 
and sacrificed about 2000 French lives before they 
drew the fires from their dredges, left their steam 
shovels in the jungle and turned the task over to the 
great American Republic. 



. 'ii'Ss" 



., ^i*is|v 



CHAPTER VII 



THE UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 





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HE probable failure of the 
French became apparent 
some years before the 
actual collapse occurred 
and public opinion in the 
United States was quite 
ready for the assump- 
tion of the work and its 
expense 
by our 
govern- 
m e n t . 



decisive. The French had no rights that they 
could sell except the right of veto conferred by 
their ownership of the Panama Railroad. Their 
franchise from Colombia expressly prohibited its 
transfer to any other government, so it was un- 
salable. But the charter of the Panama Rail- 
road, which the French had acquired, provided 
that no interoceanic canal should be built in Co- 



Of course that opinion was not 
wholly spontaneous — public 
opinion rarely is, notwithstanding 
the idealists. There were many 
parties in interest who found it 
profitable to enlist various agen- 
cies for awakening public opin- 
ion in this country to the point 
•of buying the French property 
and saving something out of the 
wreck for the French stockholders. 
But, as a matter of fact, little 
artificial agitation was needful. 
The people of the United States 
readily agreed that a trans-isth- 
mian canal should be built and 
owned by the United States 
government. There was honest 
difference of opinion as to the 
most practicable route and even 
today in the face of the victory 
over nature at Panama there are 
many who hold that the Nica- 
ragua route would have been 
better. 

Naturally the start made by 
the French had something to do 
with turning the decision in favor 
of the Isthmus, but it was not 




Phato by Underwood & Underwood 

PANAMA SOLDIERS GOING TO CHURCH 
123 



124 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



lombia without the consent of the railroad corpora- 
tion. This to some extent gave the French the 
whiphand. What they had to sell was the con- 
trolling stock of the railroad company, the land 
they had acquired in Colombia, the machinery on 
the spot and the work they had completed. But 
all of this was of little value without a franchise from 
Colombia and the one the French held could not be 
transferred to a govern- 
ment, and was of little 
worth anyway as it 
would expire in 1 910, 
unless the canal were 
completed by that year 
— a physical impossi- 
bility. 

In 1898 the race of 
the battleship "Oregon" 
around Cape Horn to 
join the United States 
fleet off Cuba in the 
Spanish - American war 
offered just tne graphic 
and specific argument 
necessary to fix the de- 
termination of the 
American people to dig 
that canal and to own 
it. That voyage of 
10,000 miles which might 
have been avoided by 
a ditch fifty miles long 
revolted the common 
sense of the nation, and 
the demand for instant 
action on the canal 
question was universal. 
Accordingly in 1899 President McKinley appointed 
what was known as the Walker Commission, because 
headed by Admiral John G. Walker, to investigate 
all Central American routes. They had the data 
collected during almost a century at their disposal 
and very speedily settled down to the alternative 
between the Panama and the Nicaragua routes. 
Over this choice controversy raged long and noisily. 
While it was in progress the bullet of an assassin 
ended the life of President McKinley and Theo- 
dore Roosevelt succeeded him. 




THE OFFICIAL UMPIRE, COCLE 



The Isthmian Canal was precisely the great, 
epoch-marking spectacular enterprise to enlist the 
utmost enthusiasm and energy of this peculiarly 
dynamic President. A man of strong convictions 
he favored the Panama route — and got it. He 
believed in a lock canal — and enforced his beliefs 
over the report of the engineers whose expert profes- 
sional opinions he invited. Of a militant tempera- 
ment he thought the 
canal should be dug by 
the army — and that is 
the way it was built. 
Not over tolerant of 
other people's rights he 
thought the United 
States should have a free 
hand over the canal and 
adjacent territory — and 
when Colombia, which 
happened to own that 
territory, was slow in ac- 
cepting this view he set 
up out of nothing over 
night the new Republic 
of Panama, recognized 
it as a sovereign state 
two days afterwards, 
concluded a treaty with 
it, giving the United 
States all he thought it 
should have, and years 
later, in a moment of 
frankness declared "I 
took Panama, and left 
Congress to debate it 
later." 

About the political 
morality and the personal ethics of the Roosevelt 
solution of the diplomatic problem there will ever 
be varying opinions. Colombia is still mourning for 
her ravished province of Panama and refuses to be 
comforted even at a price of $10,000,000 which has 
been tentatively offered as salve for the wound. 
But that the canal in 1913 is just about ten years 
nearer completion than it would be had not Roose- 
velt been President in 1903 is a proposition generally 
accepted. History — which is not always moral — 
is apt to applaud results regardless of methods, and 




I'lwtu (jy i iniirauuii ct Unacrwuaa 

THE MAN AND THE MACHINE 
President Roosevelt and the monster steam shovel figure largely in the story of Panama 

125 



126 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



the Republic and Capal of Panama are likely to 
be Roosevelt's most enduring monuments — though 
the canal may outlast the Republic. 

Prior to this time there had been several sporadic 
negotiations opened with different nations of Central 
America for canal rights. The most important one 
was a treaty signed at Bogota in 1870 by an envoy 
especially authorized by President Grant. But this 
treaty was never ratified by our Senate, and was 
amended out of acceptable form by the Colombian 
Senate. For the purposes of this narrative we may 
well consider the diplomatic history of the canal to 
begin with the passage of the Spooner act in 1902. 
This act, written by Senator John C. Spooner of 
Wisconsin, authorized the Panama route if the 
French property could be bought for $40,000,000 
and the necessary right of way secured from Colom- 
bia. Failing this the Commission of seven members 
created by the act was authorized to open negotia- 
tions with Nicaragua. Events made it quite appar- 
ent that the Nicaragua clause was inserted merely 
as a club to be used in the negotiations with Co- 




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Photo Iju Underwood d- Underwood 

LANDING PIGS FOR MARKET 



THE TRAIL NEAR CULEBRA 

lombia and the French company. With the latter 
it proved highly effective, for although the American 
attorney for the company, Mr. William Nelson 
Cromwell, fixed a price at first upon the property 
of $101,141,500 an apparently active opening of 
negotiations with Nicaragua caused an immediate 
drop to the prescribed $40,000,000. With that offer 
in hand the Commission unanimously reported to the 
President in favor of the Panama route. 

The Republic of Colombia was less tractable, and 
naturally so as it held a stronger hand. When 
negotiations began the French concession had but 
seven years more of life. If their progress could 
be prolonged for that period practically all that the 
United States would have paid the French would be 
paid to Colombia. Meanwhile the French property 
was wholly unsalable without a Colombian fran- 
chise. The one weak point in the Colombian 
armor was the possibility that the United States 
might finally turn to Nicaragua, but this contin- 
gency was made unlikely by the report of the Com- 
mission, and by the general desire of the American 
people which was undoubtedly for the Panama 
route. 

In 1903 the Colombian Minister at Washington, 
negotiated with Senator Hay a treaty which by a 
lucky chance failed of ratification in the Panama 
Senate. It never reached our Senate, but it is 
quite incredible that it could have succeeded there, 
for it had several features that would have led tO' 
endless disagreement between the two countries — 
might indeed have resulted in the United States 
annexing Colombia altogether. For example the 
Canal Zone was to be governed by a joint commis- 
sion of the two countries — Colombia remaining 



WHY PANAMA WANTED INDEPENDENCE 



127- 



sovereign over the territory. The United States 
was to explicitly guarantee the sovereignty of 
Colombia against all the world. Colombia was to 
police the Zone. Each of these sections was big 
with possibilities of trouble. That Colombia did not 
speedily ratify this treaty would be inexplicable, 
for it was all to the Colombian good, except for the 
fact that by delaying any action for seven years the 
French property along the line of the canal, valued 
at $40,000,000, would drop into the Colombian 
treasury. 

Delay, however, while good enough for the Co- 
lombians, did not suit the Panamanians, nor did it 
please Theodore Roosevelt, whom Providence, while 
richly endowing him otherwise, had not invested 
with patience in the face of opposition. The Pana- 
manians, by whom for the purposes of this narrative 
I mean chiefly the residents of Colon and the city 



of Panama, wanted to see some American money 
spent in their various marts of trade. The French 
were rapidly disappearing. The business of all 
their commercial institutions from dry goods stores, 
down to saloons was falling off. Even the lottery 
did not thrive as of yore and the proprietors of the 
lesser games of chance, that in those days were run 
quite openly, were reduced to the precarious busi- 
ness of robbing each other. All these and other 
vested interests called for immediate negotiation, 
of any sort of a treaty which would open the spigots 
of Uncle Sam's kegs of cash over the two thirsty 
Isthmian towns. It was irksome too to think that- 
the parent state of Colombia would make the treaty 
and handle the cash accruing under it. The Yankees 
were ready to pay $10,000,000 down, and it was 
believed a further rental of $250,000 for the right 
to build a canal everv foot of which would be on 




IN THE BANANA COUNTRY, ON THE COAST NEAR BOCAS DEL TORO 



128 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



the territory of the Province of Panama. If Panama 
was a sovereign state instead of merely a province, 
all this money would be used for the benefit of but 
400,000 people, including Indians and negroes, 
who of course could not be expected to have much 
to say about its use. If employed in public works, 
it would only have to spread over about 32,000 
square miles, or a territory a little smaller than 
Indiana. But of course it would chiefly go to the 
two cities. On the other hand if Colombia made 
this treaty the 
capital city 
Bogota would 
get the lion's 
share of the 
spoil, and for 
that matter 
all the prov- 
inces would 
share in the 
division with 
Panama, 
which had the 
goods for sale. 

What more 
natural than 
that the Pan- 
amanians 
should turn 
their thoughts 
toward seces- 
sion from Co- 
lombia? It 
was no novel 
channel for their meditations, for, as has been pointed 
out already, there had been 53 revolutions in Colom- 
bia in 57 years. Red revolution had become a com- 
monplace except for the poor fellows who got them- 
selves killed in them, or the widows and children 
thrown on the charity of a rather uncharitable 
people. Always hitherto the result of the revolu- 
tions had been the same — Panama had either been 
whipped into subjection, or had voluntarily returned 
to the domination of Colombia. But that was be- 
fore there was a $10,000,000 prize at stake. 

In several of these revolutions the United States 
had interfered, always in behalf of Colombia and 
always with fatal effect upon the hopes of the 




Photo by Underwood & Underwood 

THE BEST RESIDENCE SECTION, COLON 



revolutionists. For the key to the military situa- 
tion in Panama was the railroad. In every well 
ordered revolution — for the business of revolting 
had become a science — the conspirators began by 
corrupting the federal soldiers at Panama city where 
alone any garrison was maintained. This done they 
proclaimed Panama a free and independent state. 
As there was no land communication between 
Bogota and the Isthmus the federal government was 
compelled to send its troops to Colon and thence 

across the 
Isthmus to 
Panama by 
railroad. If 
the revolu- 
tionists could 
destroy or ob- 
struct the rail- 
road their 
chances for 
success would 
be greatly en- 
hanced. 

But under 
a treaty with 
Colombia in 
1846 the Uni- 
ted States 
guaranteed 
the neutrality 
of the rail- 
road and this 
guarantee was 
sensibly con- 
structed to include the task of keeping the line open 
for traffic. In several revolutions, therefore, United 
States marines were detailed to guard the line, and 
Colombia being thus enabled to pour its superior 
forces into Panama crushed out rebellion with com- 
parative ease. If the experience of the 53 revolutions 
counted for anything, it indicated that Panama 
could not throw off the Colombian yoke as long as 
the United States kept the railroad open for Colom- 
bian troops. 

Let us consider the situation toward the mid- 
summer of 1903. In Washington was the Roose- 1, 
velt administration keenly eager to have the canal 
work begun as a great deed to display to the nation 



OUR SHARE IN THE REVOLUTION 



129 



in the coming presidential campaign. In New York 
was Mr. William Nelson Cromwell, representing the 
French company and quite as keen for action which 
would enable him to sell the United States $40,- 
000,000 worth of French machinery and uncompleted 
canal. At Bogota was the Colombian legislature 
talking the Hay-Herrara treaty to death and giving 
every indication of a purpose of killing it. Spanning 
the Isthmus was the all important railroad which was 
part of the property the French so greatly 
desired to sell. And at Panama and 
Colon were groups of influential men, 
high financiers in a small way — a 
leader among them was the owner 
of the Panama lottery — exceed- 
ingly anxious to have the 
handling of that $10,000,- 
000 which the United 
States would 
pay for a fran- 
chise, and quite 
desirous to 
have the coun- 
try tributary 
to those two 
towns sudden- 
ly populated 
by 40,000 to 
50,000 canal 
workmen, all 
drawing 
money from 
the United 
States and 
spending it 
there. 

What hap- 
pened was in- 
evitable. Un- 
der the con- 
ditions existing only two things coidd have pre- 
vented the successful revolution which did occur — 
the quick ratification of a satisfactory treaty between 
the United States and Colombia, or an observance 
by the United States of the spirit as well as the letter 
of neutrality in the inevitable revolution. 

Neither of these things happened. The Congress 
at Bogota failed to ratify the treaty. In Panama 



and Colon the revolutionary Junta conspired, and 
sent emissaries to Washington to sound the govern- 
ment there on its attitude in case of a revolution. 
To their aid came Mr. Cromwell and M. Bunau- 
Varilla, a highly distinguished French engineer also 
interested in the plight of his countrymen. Dr. 

Amador was 
chosen 




o un d 



to 
the 



THE OLD FIRE CISTERN, PANAMA 



then Secretary 
I if State John 
Hay. He was 
told, accord- 
ing to trust- 
■,v orthy re- 
ports, that 
while the 
United States 
guaranteed 
Colombia 
against for- 
eign aggres- 
sion it did not 
bind itself to 
protect the 
sovereignty of 
that state 
against do- 
mestic revolu- 
tion. In the 
event of such 
an uprising 
all it was 
bound to do 
was to see 
that traffic 
over the rail- 
road was un- 
impeded. This 
sounded and 
still sounds fair enough, but there were minds 
among the revolutionists to see that this policy 
opened the way for a successful revolution at last. 
For this is the way in which the policy worked 
when put to the test — and indeed some of the 
incidents indicate that the Roosevelt administra- 
tion went somewhat beyond the letter of the rule 
Secretary Hay had laid down. Our government 



130 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



knew before the revolutionary blow was struck 
that it was imminent. It is said indeed that when 
the revolutionists suggested September 22nd as the 
date for the spontaneous uprising of the people 
the Secretary sagaciously suggested that the Con- 
gress of Colombia would not then have adjourned and 
that it might seem ir- 
regular to base a revolu- 
tion on the omission of 
the legislature to act 
when it was still in session 
and could correct that 
omission. For this, or 
some other reason, the 
revolution was postponed 
until November 5th. The 
Colombian minister at 
Washington kept his 
government advised of 
the suspicious activity 
there of the agents of 
the Junta and warmly 
advised the heavy reen- 
forcement of the garri- 
son at Panama. But his 
home government was 
slow to follow his advice. 
When it did move it was 
checked by the French 
managers of the railroad. 
Colombia's only con- 
siderable seaport on the 
Pacific is Buenaventura 
and at this point troops 
were collected to reen- 
force Panama. Two Co- 
lombian gunboats in har- 
bor at Panama were 
ordered to go after the 
troops. Coal was needed for the voyage. The 
only source of coal supplies on the Isthmus was 
the Panama Railroad which had long made a prac- 
tice of selling the fuel to all comers. But to 
the request of the Colombian navy for coal at this 
time the railroad agent, evidently primed for the 
occasion, put in a reluctant negative. All his coal 
was at Colon, and the pressirre of commercial busi- 
ness was so great that he could not move it across 




Pholo bu Underwood & Underwood 

THE TWO PRESIDENTS; 



the Isthmus in season to be of use to the gunboats. 
So those troops stayed at Buenaventura and the 
Junta at Panama went on with its plotting. 

Now Colombia tried another plan to reenforce its 
Panama garrison — or to replace it, for by this time 
the troops that had been there were won over to the 

smoldering conspiracy. 
About four hundred sol- 
diers were sent down by 
the Gulf and landed at 
Colon. That they were 
landed at aU seems like 
a slight error in carrying 
out the Roosevelt policy, 
for in the harbor of Co- 
lon lay the United States 
cruiser "Nashville" and 
gunboat "Dixie" whose 
commanders had this 
desptach from the Secre- 
tary of the Navy: 

"Maintain free and un- 
interrupted transit. If in- 
terruption is threatened by 
armed force occupy line of 
railroad. Prevent landing 
of any armed force with 
hostile intent either govern- 
ment or insurgent, either 
at Colon, Porto Bello or 
other points." 

Now there are some 
curious features about 
this despatch. On No- 
vember 2nd, its date, 
there was no insurrec- 
tion, therefore no insur- 
gents. If the adminis- 
tration intended to take 
official cognizance of the 
activities of the Junta it must have known that 
the conspirators had no ships and could not there- 
fore plan landing any forces. The order then was 
plainly designed to prevent Colombia from landing 
troops in its own territory — a most extraordinary 
policy to adopt toward a friendly nation. It was 
furthermore an order equivalent to assuring the 
success of the foreshadowed revolution, for as there 
was no way except by sea for Colombia to send 



ROOSEVELT AND AMADOR 



A REVOLUTION WITHOUT A SINGLE BATTLE 



131 




CHOLO CHIEF AND HIS THIRD WIFE 
The Chief is said to have poisoned her two predecessors 

troops to put down the insurgents, it was evident 
that for the United States by its superior force to 
close the sea against her was to give Panama over 
to the revolutionists. 

However 400 troops were landed on the 3rd of 
November. The commander of the "Nashville" 
probably thought his orders only operative in case 
of an outbreak of insurrection and thus far there had 
been none. It became time for the railroad com- 
pany to declare its second check — which in this case 
was checkmate. When the two generals in com- 
mand of the 
Colombian 
forces ordered 
special trains 
to transport 
their men to 
Panama the 
agent blandly 
asked for pre- 
payment of the 
fares — some- 
thing above 
$2000. The 
generals were 
embarrassed. 
They had no 
funds. It was 
of course the 
business of the 
road, under its 
charter from 
Colombia, to 
transport the 



troops on demand, and it was the part of the gen- 
erals to use their troops to compel it to do so. Tak- 
ing the matter under advisement they went alone 
across to Panama to investigate the situation. 
There they were met by Gen. Huertas, in command 
of the garrison who first gave them a good dinner 
and then put them under arrest informing them that 
Panama had revolted, was now an independent re- 
public, and that he was part of the new regime. 
There was no more to it in Panama. The two gen- 
erals submitted gracefully. The Junta arrested all 
the Colombian officials in Panama, who thereupon 
readily took oath of fealty to the new government. 
A street mob, mainly boys, paraded cheering for 
Panama Libre. The Panama flag sprang into be- 
ing, and the revolution was complete. 

Out in the harbor lay three Colombian gunboats. 
Two swiftly displayed Panama flags which by singu- 
lar good fortune were in their lockers. The third 
with a fine show of loyalty fired two shells over the 
insurgent city, one of which, bursting, slew an inno- 
cent Chinaman smoking opium in his bunk. The 
city responded with an inefi^ective shot or two from 
the seawall and the sole defender of the sovereignty 
of Colombia pulled down its flag. 




Fnoto dj/ Pro/. Luiz 



NATIVE HOUSE AND GROUP AT PUERIA PINAS 



132 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



At the other end of the Hne the situation was more 
serious and might well have caused bloodshed. Col. 
Torres, in charge of the troops there, on hearing 
the news from Panama demanded a train at once, 
threatening that unless it was furnished he would 
attack the Americans in the town. He had more 
than 400 armed men, while on the "Nashville" were 
but 192 marines. In such a contest the Colombians 
coiild have relied upon much assistance from the 
natives. With a guard of 42 marines employees of 
the railroad prepared its stone freight house for de- 
fense while American women and children were sent 
to vessels in the harbor. The Colombian colonel 
had fixed two o'clock as the hour for beginning hos- 
tilities but when that time arrived he invited a con- 
ference, and it was finally agreed that both parties 
should retire from Colon, while he went to Panama 
to consult with the jailed generals. During his 
absence the "Dixie" arrived with 400 marines, 
and a little later the "Atlanta" with 1000. With 
this overwhelming force against him Col. Torres 
recognized that the United States was back of 
the railroad's refusal of transportation and so yielded. 

With his 
troops he 
sailed again 
for Carta- 
gena. 



Two days after the revolution — bloodless save 
for the sleeping Chinaman — the United States recog- 
nized the Republic of Panama. Twelve days later, 
with M. Bunau-Varilla who had by cable been ap- 



pointed min- 
Washington, 
was conclud- 
ed by which 



ister to 
a treaty 





WHAT THEY CALL A STREET IN TOBAGA 



HINDOO MERCHANTS ON THE ZONE 

the United States was granted all it desired for the 
furtherance of the canal project. Much of the 
subsequent time of President Roosevelt was taken 
up in arguing that he had not gone beyond the 
proper bounds of diplomacy in getting this advan- 
tage, but the world though accepting the result has 
ever been incredulous of his protestations of good 
faith. And the end is not yet. Colombia has not 
condoned the part taken by the United States, and 
the State Department has long been endeavoring 
to discover some way, not too mortifying 
» to our national self-esteem, by. which we 

may allay Colom- 
bia's discontent. 
And as for that 
nation it has per- 
sistently refused 
to recognize Pan- 
ama as independ- 
ent, one of the 
results of which 
has been that the 
perpetrators o f 
crime on the 
Isthmus may 
skip blithely over 
the line to Bo- 



TREATY RIGHTS OF THE UNITED STATES 



133 




gota or Cartagena 
and enjoy life free 
from dread of extra- 
dition. 

Briefly summar- 
ized the terms of the 
treaty thus expe- 
ditiously secured are : 

1 . The guaranty 
of the independence 
of the Republic of 
Panama. 

2. The grant to 
the United States of 
a strip of land from 
ocean to ocean, ex- 
tending for five miles 
on each side of the 
canal, to be called 
the Canal Zone and 
over which the United 

States has absolute jurisdiction. From this Zone 
the cities of Panama and Colon are explicitly ex- 
cluded. 

3. All railway and canal rights in the Zone are 
ceded to the United States and its property therein 
is exempted from taxation. 

4. The United States has the right to police, gar- 
rison and fortify the Zone. 

5. The United States is granted sanitary juris- 
diction over the cities of Panama and Colon, and 
is vested with the right to preserve order in the Re- 
public, should the Panamanian government in the 
judgment of the United States fail to do so. 

6. As a condition of the treaty the United States 
paid to Panama $10,000,000 in cash, and in 1913 
began the annual payment of $250,000 in perpetuity. 

Thus equipped with all necessary international 
authority for the work of building the canal Presi- 
dent Roosevelt plunged with equal vehemence and 
audacity into the actual constructive work. If he 
strained to the breaking point the rights of a friendly 
nation to get his treaty, he afterwards tested even 
fturther the elasticity of the power of a President to 
act without Congressional authority. 

We may hastily pass over the steps forward. Mr. 
Cromwell was paid the $40,000,000 for the French 
stockholders, and at once there arose a prodigious 



CHAME BEACH, PACIFIC COAST 
Where sand is obtained for locks on the Pacific division 



outcry that the Frenchmen got but little out of it; 
that their stock had been bought for a few cents on 
the dollar by speculative Americans; that these 
Americans had financed the "revolution" and that 
some of the stock was held by persons very close to 
the administration. None of these charges was 
proved, but all left a rather bad impression on the 
public mind. However the United States received 
full value for the money. April 28, 1904, Congress 
appropriated the $10,000,000 due Panama, and with 




Photo by Underwood tk Underwood 

FRENCH DRY DOCK, CRISTOBAL 



134 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



MONTANA SOUIH DAKOTA MIWeSOTA L ^COHSm , 




WHAT THE WORK EXPENDED ON THE CANAL MIGHT HAVE DONE 
Build a Chinese wall from San Francisco to New York, or dig a ditch lo feet deep and 55 feet wide across the United States at its widest part 



the title thus clear Lieutenant Mark Brooke, 
U. S. A., at 7:30 A. M. May 4th, formally took over 
the territory in the name of the United States. 
An excellent opportunity for pomp and ceremony, 
for fuss and feathers was thus wasted. There were 
neither speeches, nor thundering salutes and the 
hour was obviously unpropitious for champagne. 
"They order these things better in France," as 
"Uncle Toby" was wont to say. 

When little more than a decade shall have rolled 
away after that wasted ceremonial moment the 
visitor to the Isthmus will gaze upon the greatest 
completed public work of this or any other past age. 
To conceive of some task that man may accom- 
plish in future that will exceed in magnitude this 
one is in itself a tax upon the most vivid imagina- 
tion. To what great work of the past can we com- 
pare this one of the present? 



The great Chinese wall has been celebrated in all 
history as one of man's most gigantic efforts. It is 
1500 miles long and would reach from San Francisco 
to St. Louis. But the rock and dirt taken from the 
Panama Canal would build a wall as high and thick 
as the Chinese wonder, 2500 miles long and reach 
from San Francisco to New York in a bee-line. 

We cross thousands of miles of ocean to see the 
great Pyramid of Cheops, one of the Seven Wonders 
of the ancient world. But the "spoil" taken from 
the canal prism would build sixty-three such pyra- 
mids which put in a row would fill Broadway from 
the Battery to Harlem, or a distance of nine miles. 

The Panama Canal is but fifty miles long, but if 
we could imagine the United States as perfectly 
level, the amount of excavation done at Panama 
would dig a canal ten feet deep and fifty-five feet 
wide across the United States at its broadest part. 



"^^^^.p^ 




CouTUsy Scientific American 

A GRAPHIC COMPARISON 
The " spoil " taken from the canal would build 63 pyramids the size of Cheops in Broadway from the Battery to Harlem 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE MAGNITUDE OF THE CANAL WORK 



135 



New York City boasts of its great Pennsylvania 
terminal, and its sky -piercing Woolworth Building; 
Washington is proud yf^^^ °^ its towering 
Washington Mon- // ^^'*''*^"-~^ unient,the 
White House 
and the 




WHAT THE PANAMA CONCRETE WOULD DO 

buildings adjacent thereto. But the concrete used 

in the locks and dams of the canal would make a 

pyramid 400 feet high, covering the great 

railway station; the material taken 

from Culebra cut alone would 

make a pyramid topping the 

Woolworth tower by 100 feet 

and covering the city from 

Chambers to Fulton Street, 

and from the City Hall to 

West Broadway; while the 

total soil excavated in the 

Canal Zone would form a 

pyramid 4200 feet or four 

fifths of a mile high, and of 

equal base line obliterating not 

only the Washington Monument 

but the White House, Treasury, the 

State, War and Navy Buildings and the 

finest part of official Washington as well. 




Courtesy Scicntiftc American 



^ , ^^ . . ... PROPORTIONS OF SOME 

Jules Verne once, m imagmation, drove Qp ^^^ canal work 



a tunnel through the center of the earth, 
but the little cylindrical tubes drilled for the dyna- 
mite cartridges on "the line" (as people at Panama 
refer to the Canal Zone) would, if placed end to end, 
pierce this great globe of ours from side to side; 
while the dirt cars that have carried off the material 
would, if made up in one train, reach four times 
around the world. 

But enough of the merely big. Let us consider the 
spectacle which would confront that visitor whom, 
in an earlier chapter, we took from Colon to view 
Porto Bello and San Lorenzo. After finishing those 
historical pilgrimages if he desired to see the canal 
in its completed state — say after 19 14 — he would 
take a ship at the great concrete docks at Cristobal 
which will have supplanted as the resting places 



for the world's shipping the earlier timber wharves 
at Colon. Steaming out into the magnificent Limon 
Bay, the vessel passes into the channel dredged out 
some three miles into the turbulent Caribbean, and 
protected from the harsh northers by the massive 
Toro Point breakwater. The vessel's prow is turned 
toward the land, not westward as one would think 
of a ship bound from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
but almost due south. The channel through which 
she steams is 500 feet wide at the bottom, and 41 feet 
deep at low tide. It extends seven miles to the first 
interruption at Gatun, a tide water stream all the 
way. The shores are low, covered with tropical 
foliage, and littered along the water line 
with the debris of recent construc- 
tion work. After steaming about 
six miles someone familiar with 
the line will be able to point 
out over the port side of the 
ship the juncture of the old 
French canal with the com- 
pleted one, and if the jun- 
gle has not grown up too 
thick the narrow channel 
of the former can be traced 
reaching back to Colon by 
the side of the Panama Rail- 
road. This canal was used by 
the Americans throughout the con- 
struction work. 

At this point the shores rise higher 
and one on the bridge, or at the bow, 
will be able to clearly discern far ahead 
a long hill sloping gently upward on each side of 



the canal, and cut at 
masses of white ma- 
ship comes nearer 
gigantic locks, 
pairs by three 
to a total 



the center with great 
sonry, which as the 
are seen to be 
ng in 
steps 




height of 
85 feet. 



Courtesy Scicntijic American 

THE ''spoil" from CULEBRA CUT WOULD DO THIS 



'136 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Photo by Underwood & Underiiood 

IN A TYPICAL LOCK 

The bridge across is temporary, for construction purposes only. Gates are still skeletonized awaiting the steel sheathing 



For 1000 feet straight out into the center of the canal 
extends a massive concrete pier, the continuation of 
the center wall, or partition, between the pairs of 
locks, while to right and left side walls flare out, to the 
full width of the canal, like a gigantic U, or a funnel 
guiding the ships toward the straight pathway up- 
ward and onward. A graceful lighthouse guides the 
ships at night, while all along the central pier and 
guide wall electric lights in pairs give this outpost 
of civilization in the jungle something of the air 
at night of a brightly lighted boulevard. 

Up to this time the ship had been proceeding under 
her own steam and at about full speed. Now slow- 
ing down she gradually comet to a full stop alongside 
the central guide wall. Here will be waiting four 
electric locomotives, two on the central, two on the 
side wall. Made fast, bow and stern, the satellites 
start off with the ship in tow. It will take an hour 
and a half to pass the three locks at Gatun and ar- 
rangements will probably be made for passengers to 
leave the ship and walk by its side if desired, as it 
climbs the three steps to the waters of Gatun Lake 
85 feet above. 

Probably the first thing the observant passenger 



will notice is that as the ship steams into the open 
lock the great gates which are to close behind her 
and hold the water which flows in from below, 
slowly lifting her to the lock above, are folded flush 
with the wall, a recess having been built to receive 
them. The chamber which the vessel has entered 
is 1000 feet long, if the full water capacity be em- 
ployed, no feet wide and will raise the ship 2833 
feet. If the ship is a comparatively small one the 
full length of the lock will not be used, as interme- 
diate gates are provided which will permit the use of 
400 or 600 feet of the lock as required — thus saving 
water, which means saving power, for the water that 
raises and lowers the ships also generates electric 
power which will be employed in several ways. 

Back of each pair of gates is a second pair of 
emergency gates folded back flush with the wall and 
only to be used in case of injurj^ to the first pair. 
On the floor of the canal at the entrance to the lock 
lies a great chain, attached to machinery which, at 
the flrst sign of a ship's becoming unmanageable, 
will raise it and bar the passage. Nearly all serious 
accidents which have occurred to locks have been 
due to vessels of which control has been lost, by 



THE PASSAGE OF THE CANAL LOCKS 



^37 



some error in telegraphing from tlie bridge to the 
engine room. For this reason at Panama vessels 
once in the locks will be controlled wholly by the 
four locomotives on the lock walls which can check 
its momentum at the slightest sign of danger. 
Their own engines will be shut down. Finally at 
the upper entrance to the locks is an eniergency dam 
built on the guide wall. It is evident that if an acci- 
dent should happen to the gates of the upper lock 
the water on the upper level would rush with destruc- 
tive force against the lower ones, perhaps sweeping 
away one after the other and wrecking the canal 
disastrously. To avert this the emergency dams 
are swtmg on a pivot, something like a drawbridge, 
athwart the lock and great plates let down one after 
the other, stayed by the perpendicular steel frame- 
work until the rush of the waters is checked. A 
caisson is then sunk against these plates, making 
the dam complete. 

The method of construction and operation of these 



locks will be more fully described in a later chapter. 
What has been outlined here can be fully observed 
by the voyager in transit. The machinery by which 
all is operated is concealed in the masonry crypts- 
below, but the traveler may find cheer and certainty 
of safety in the assurance of the engineer who took 
me through the cavernous passages — "It's all made 
fool proof". 

Leaving the Gatun locks and going toward the- 
Pacific the ship enters Gatun Lake, a great arti- 
ficial body of water 85 feet above tide water. This 
is the ultimate height to which the vessel must 
climb, and it has reached it in the three steps of the- 
Gatun locks. To descend from Gatun Lake to the- 
Pacific level she drops down one lock at PedrO' 
Miguel, 30}^ feet; and two locks at Mirafiores with 
a total descent of 54% feet. Returning from the- 
Pacific to the Atlantic the locks of course are taken, 
in reverse order, the ascent beginning at Mirafiores 
and the complete descent being made at Gatun. 




Photo by Underwood, & Underwood 



LOCK AT PEDRO MIGUEL UNDER CONSTRUCTION 
The picture sho-ws strikingly the construction of the locks in pairs, the inner pair being for precautionary purposes 



138 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



Gatun Lake constitutes really the major part of the 
canal, and the channel through it extends in a some- 
what tortuous course 
for about twenty- 
four miles. So broad 
is the channel dredged 
— ranging from 500 
to 1000 feet in width 
and 45 to 85 in depth 
— that vessels will 
proceed at full speed, 
a very material ad- 
vantage, as m ordi- 
nary canals half speed 
or even less is pre- 




RANGE TOWER AT PACIFIC ENTRANCE 

scribed in order to avoid the erosion of the banks 
The lake which the voyager by Panama will tra- 
verse will in time be- 
come a scenic feature 
of the trip that can- 
not fail to delight 
those who gaze upon 
it. But for some 
years to come it will 
be ghastly, a living 
realization of some of 
the pictures emanat- 
ing from the abnor- 
mal brain of Gustave 
Dore. On either side 
of the ship gaunt gray 
trunks of dead trees 
rise from the placid 
water, draped in some 
instances with the 
Spanish moss familiar 
to residents of our 
southern states, 
though not abundant 



on the Isthmus. More of the trees are hung with the 
trailing ropes of vines once bright with green foliage 
and brilliant flowers, now gray and dead like the 
parent trunk. Only the orchids and the air plants 
will continue to give some slight hint of life to the 
dull gray monotony of death. For a time, too, it 
must be expected that the atmosphere will be as 
offensive as the scene is depressing, for it has been 
found that the tropical foliage in rotting gives out 
a most penetrating and disagreeable odor. The 
scientists have determined to their own satisfaction 
that it is not prejudicial to health, but the men who 
have been working in the camps near the shores 
of the rising lake declare it emphatically destructive 
of comfort. 

The unfortunate trees are drowned. Plunging 
their roots beneath the waters causes their death as 
infallibly, but not so quickly, as to fill a man's lungs 
with the same fluid brings on his end. The Canal 
Commission has not been oblivious to the disadvan- 
tages, both aesthetic and practical, of this great body 
of dead timber standing in the lake, but it has found 
the cost of removing it prohibitive. Careful esti- 
mates fix the total expense for doing quickly what 
nature will do gratis in time at $2,000,000. The 
many small inlets and backwaters of the lake more- 




BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF PEDRO MIGUEL LOCKS 



SPECTACULAR FEATURES OF GATUN LAKE 



139 



over will afford breeding placgs for the mosquitos and 
other pestilent insects which the larvacide man with 
his can and pump can never reach, and no earthly 
ingenuity can wholly purify. 

One vegetable phenomenon of the lake, now ex- 
ceedingly common, will persist for some time after 
the ocean-going steamers begin to ply those waters, 
namely the floating islands. These range from a few 
feet to several acres in extent, and are formed by 
portions of the spongy bed of the lake being broken 
away by the action of the water, and carried off 



Florida and Louisiana. Conditions in Gatun Lake 
are ideal for it and the officials are studying methods 
of checking its spread from the very beginning. 

The waters of the lake cover 164 square miles and 
are at points eighty-five feet deep. In the main this 
vast expanse of water, one of the largest of artificial 
reservoirs, containing about 183 billion cubic feet 
of water, is supplied by the Chagres River, though 
several smaller streams add to its volume. Be- 
fore the dam was built two or three score yards 
measured the Chagres at its widest point. Now the 




Fhoto Oy f^nic/uuw 



THE VEGETABLE MARTYRS 
The trees in the district flooded by Gatun Lake are being slowly drowned and will finally disappear 



by the current, or the winds acting upon the aquatic 
plants on the surface. They gradually assume a 
size and consistency that will make them, if not com- 
bated, a serious menace to navigation. At present 
the sole method of dealing with them is to tow them 
down to the dam and send them over the spillway, 
but some more speedy and efficacious method is yet 
to be devised. However as the trees now standing 
fall and disintegrate, and the actual shores of the 
lake recede further from the canal the islands will 
become fewer, and the space in which they can 
gather without impediment to navigation greater. 
Another menace to a clear channel which has put in 
an appearance is the water hyacinth which has prac- 
tically destroyed the navigability of streams in 



waters are backed up into the interior far beyond 
the borders of the Canal Zone, along the course of 
every little waterway that flowed into the Chagres, 
and busy launches may ply above the sites of buried 
Indian towns. The towns themselves will not be 
submerged, for the cane and palm-thatched huts will 
float away on the rising tide. Indeed from the ships 
little sign of native life will appear, unless it be 
Indians in cayucas making their way to market. 
For the announced policy of the government is to 
depopulate the Zone. All the Indian rights to the 
soil have been purchased and the inhabitants re- 
morselessly ordered to move out beyond the five- 
mile strip on either side of the canal. This is un- 
fortunate as it will rob the trip of what might have 



140 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



been a scenic feature, for the Indians love to build 
their villages near the water, which is in fact their 
principal highway, and but for this prohibition 
would probably rebuild as near the sites of their 
obliterated towns as the waters would permit. 

In passing through the lake the canal describes 
eight angles, 
and the atten- 
tive traveler 
will find inter- 
est in watching 
the range lights 
by which the 
ship is guided 
when navigat- 
ing the chan- 
nel by day or 
by night — for 
there need be 
no cessation of 
passage be- 
cause of dark- 
ness. These 
range lights are 
lighthouses of 
reenforced con- 
crete so placed 
in pairs that 
one towers 
above the 
other at a dis- 
tance back of 
the lower one 
of several hun- 
dred feet. The 
pilot keeping 
these two in 
line will know 
he is keeping 

to the center of his channel until the appearance of 
two others on either port or starboard bow warns 
him that the time has come to turn. The towers are 
of graceful design, and to come upon one springing 
sixty feet or more into the air from a dense jungle 
clustering about its very base is to have a new ex- 
perience in the picturesque. They will need no 
resident light keepers, for most are on a general 
electric light circuit. Some of the more inaccessible 




NATIVE STREET AT TABOGA 



however are stocked with compressed acetylene 
which will burn over six months without recharging. 
The whole canal indeed from its beginning miles out 
in the Atlantic to its end under the blue Pacific will 
be lighted with buoys, beacons, lighthouses and light 
posts along the locks until its course is almost as 
easily followed as a "great white way." 

Sportsmen believe that this great artificial lake 
will in time become a notable breeding 
place for fish and game. Many of our 
migratory northern birds, includ- 
ing several varieties of ducks, 
now hibernate at the Isth- 
mus, and this broad ex- 
panse of placid water, 
with its innumerable 
inlets pene- 
trating a land 
densely cov- 
ered with vege- 
tation, should 
become for 
them a favor- 
ite shelter. The 
population will 
be sparse, and 
mainly as much 
as five miles 
away from the 
line of the 
canal through 
which the great 
steamers will 
ceaselessly 
pass. 

During the 
period of its 
construction 
that portion 
of the canal which will lie below the surface of 
Gatun Lake was plentifully sprinkled with native 
villages, and held two or three considerable con- 
struction towns. Of the latter Gorgona was the 
largest, which toward the end of canal construction 
attained a population of about 4000. In the earlier 
history of the Isthmus Gorgona was a noted stopping 
place for those crossing the neck, but it seems to 
have been famed chiefly for the badness of its ac- 



THE ABANDONMENT OF CANAL TOWNS 



141 



comodations. Otis says of it, "The 
town of Gorgona was noted in the 
earlier days of the river travel as the 
place where the wet and jaded trav- 
eler was accustomed to worry out 
the night on a rawhide, exposed to 
the insects and the rain, and in the 
morning, if he was fortunate regale 
himself on jerked beef and plantains. " 
The French established railroad 
shops here which the Americans 
greatly enlarged. As a result this 
town and the neighboring village of 
Matachin became considerable cen- 
ters of industry and Gorgona was one 
of the pleasantest places of residence 
on "the line." Its Y. M. C. A. clubhouse was one 
of the largest and best equipped on the whole Zone, 
and the town was well supplied with churches and 
schools. By the end of 19 13 all this will be changed. 
The shop will have been moved to the great new 
port of Balboa; such of the houses and official build- 
ings as could economically be torn down and reerect- 
ed will have been thus disposed of. Much of the two 
towns will be covered by the lake, but on the higher 
portions of the site will stand for some years deserted 
ruins which the all-conquering jungle will finally take 





PholQ by Underwood & Underwood 

GAMBOA BRIDGE 



WITH CIIAGRES AT FLOOD 
For contrasting picture showing the river in dry season, see page 192 



THE Y. M. C. A. CLUB HOUSE AT GATUN 

for its own. The railroad which once served its active 
people will have been moved away to the other side 
of the canal and Gorgona will have returned to the 
primitive wilderness whence Pizarro and the gold 
hunters awakened it. Near its site is the hill miscalled 
Balboa's and from the steamships' decks the wooden 
cross that stands on its summit may be clearly seen. 
Soon after passing Gorgona and Matachin the 
high bridge by which the railroad crosses the Chagres , 
at Gamboa, with its seven stone piers will be visible 
over the starboard side. This point is of some 

interest as being the spot at 
which the water was kept out 
of the long trench at Culebra. 
A dyke, partly artificial, here 
obstructed the canal cut and 
carried the railroad across to 
Las Cascadas, Empire, Cule- 
bra and other considerable 
towns all abandoned, together 
with that branch of the road, 
upon the completion of the 
canal. 

Now the ship passes into 
the most spectaciolar part of 
the voyage — the Culebra Cut. 
During the process of con- 
struction this stretch of the 
work vied with the great dam 
at Gatun for the distinction 
of being the most interest- 
ing and picturesque part of 



142 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



the work. Something of the spectacular effect 
then presented will be lost when the ships begin to 
pass. The sense of the magnitude of the work will 
not so greatly impress the traveler standing on the 
deck of a ship, floating on the surface of the canal 
which is here 45 feet deep, as it would were he stand- 
ing at the bottom of the cut. He will lose about 
75 feet of the actual height, as commanded by the 
earlier traveler who looked up at the towering 
height of Contractors Hill from the very floor of 
the colossal excavation. He will lose, too, much 
of the almost barbaric coloring of the newly opened 
cut where bright red vied with chrome yellow in 
startling the eye, and almost every shade of the 
chromatic scale had its representative in the freshly 
uncovered strata of earth. 

The tropical foliage grows swiftly, and long before 
the new waterway will have become an accustomed 
path to the ships of all nations the sloping banks will 
be thickly covered with vegetation. It is indeed 
the purpose of the Commission to encourage the 
growth of such vegetation by planting, in the belief 
that the roots will tie the soil together and lessen 



the danger of slides and washouts. The hills that 
here tower aloft on either side of the canal form 
part of the great continental divide that, all the 
way from Alaska to the Straits of Magellan divides 
the Pacific from the Atlantic watershed. This is its 
lowest point. Gold Hill, its greatest eminence, rises 
495 feet above the bottom of the canal, which in 
turn is 40 feet above sea level. The story of the 
gigantic task of cutting through this ridge, of the 
new problems which arose in almost every week's 
work, and of the ways in which they were met and 
overcome will necessitate a chapter to itself. Those 
who float swiftly along in well-appointed steamships 
through the almost straight channel 300 feet wide 
at the bottom, between towering hills, will find the 
sensation the more memorable if they will study 
somewhat the figures showing the proportions of the 
work, the full fruition of which they are enjoying. 

At Pedro Miguel a single lock lets the ship down 
to another little lake hardly two miles across to 
Mirafiores where two more locks drop it down to 
tide water. From Mirafiores the traveler can see 
the great bulk of Ancon Hill looming up seven miles 




Fholo by Underwood tt Underwood 



WORKING IN CULEBRA CUT 
The picture is taken at a comparatively quiet time, only two dirt trains being visible 



THE PACIFIC TERMINUS OF THE CANAL 



143 




Photo by Underwood tfc Underwood 

MIRAFLORES LOCK IN MARCH, I913 
This lock is in two stories with a total lift of $6% feet; the Pacific tides rise in the canal to the lower lock 



away, denoting the proximity of the city of Panama 
which lies huddled under its Pacific front. Practi- 
cally one great rock is Ancon Hill, and its landward 
face is badly scarred by the enormous quarry which 
the Commission has worked to furnish stone for 
construction work. At its 
base is the new port of 
Balboa which is destined 
to be in time a great dis- 
tributing point for the 
Pacific coast of both 
North and SouthAmerica. 
For the vessels coming 
through the canal from 
the Atlantic must, from 
Balboa, turn north or 
south or proceed direct 
across the Pacific to those 
Asiatic markets of which 
the old-time mariners so 
fondly dreamed. Fleets 



of smaller coastwise vessels will gather here to take 
cargoes for the ports of Central America, or for 
Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and other Pacific states of 
South America. The Canal Commission is buUding 
great docks for the accommodation of both through 




NAOS, PERICO AND FLAMENCO ISLANDS TO BE FORTIFIED 



144 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



and local shipping; storage docks and pockets for 
coal and tanks for oil. The coaling plant will have 
a capacity of about 100,000 tons, of which about 
one-half will be submerged. One dry dock will take 
a ship 1000 feet long and 105 feet wide — the width 
of the dock itself being no feet. There will be also 
a smaller dock. One pier, of the most modern 
design, equipped with unloading cranes and 2200 
feet long is already complete, and the plans for 
additional piers are prepared. The estimated cost 
of the terminals at Balboa is $15,000,000. 

The Suez Canal created no town such as Balboa 
is likely to be, for conditions with it were wholly 
•different. Port Said at the Mediterranean end and 
Aden at the Red Sea terminus are coaling stations, 
nothing more. Geographical considerations how- 
ever are likely to give to both Balboa and Cristobal 
■^particularly the former — prime importance as 
points of transshipment. 

The machine shops long in Gorgona and Matachin 
liave been removed to Balboa, and though since the 
■completion of the canal the number of their employes 
lias been greatly decreased, the work of repairing 
and outfitting vessels may be expected to maintain 
a large population of mechanics. The administra- 
tion offices now at Culebra will also be moved to 
Balboa, which in fact is likely to become the chief 
town of the Canal Zone. Here is to be an em- 
ployes' club house, built of concrete blocks at a cost 
■of $52,000. Like the other club houses established 
during the construction period it will be under the 
■direct administration of the Y. M. C. A. The town 
■of Balboa, and the club house will be in no small de- 
gree the fruit of the earnest endeavor of Col. Goethals 





BEGINNING OF NEW BALBOA DOCKS 



THE OLD PACIFIC MAIL 
DOCKS AT BALBOA 



to build there a town that shall be a credit to the 
nation, and a place of comfort for those who in- 
habit it. His estimate presented to Congress of the 
cost and character of the houses to be furnished to 
officers of various grades and certain public buildings 
may be interesting here. The material is all to be 
concrete blocks: 

Governor's house $25,000 

Commissioners' and high officials' houses, 

each 1 5,000 

Houses of this type to have large center 
room, a sitting room, dining room, bath, 
kitchen and four bed rooms. 

Families drawing $200 a month 6,000 

Families drawing less, in 4-family buildings. . 4,000 

Bachelor quarters, for 50 50,000 

Besides these buildings for personal occupance Balboa 
will contain — unless the original plans are materially 
modified : 

Hotel : $22,500 

Commissary 63,000 

School 32 ,000 

Police station and court 37, 000 

When Col. Goethals was presenting his estimates 
to Congress in 1913 the members of the Committee 
on Appropriations looked somewhat askance on the 
club-house feature of his requests, and this colloquy 
occurred : 

"The Chairman: 'A $52,000 club house?' 

"Col. Goethals: 'Yes, sir. We need a good club house, 
because we should give them some amusement, and 
keep them out of Panama. I believe in the club-house 
principle.' 

" The Chainnan: 'That is all right, but you must con- 
template a very elaborate house? ' 

" Col. Goethals : ' Yes, sir. I want to make a town there 
that will be a credit to the United States government.'" 

Looking out to sea from the prow of a ship enter- 
ing the Pacific Ocean you will notice three conical 



THE FORTS AT THE PACIFIC ENTRANCE 



145 



islands rising abruptly from the waves, to a height 
of three or four hundred feet. To be more precise 
the one nearest the shore ceased to be an island 
when the busy dirt trains of the Canal Commission 
dumped into the sea some millions of cubic yards of 
material taken from the Culebra Cut, forming at 
once a great area of artificial land which may in en- 
suing centuries have its value, and a breakwater 
which intercepts a local current that for a time gave 
the canal builders much trouble by filling the channel 
with silt. The three islands, Naos, Flamenco, and 
Perico are titilized by the United States as sites for 
powerful forts. The policy of 
the War Department necessarily 
prevents any description here of 
the forts planned or their arma- 
ment. Every government jeal- 
ously guards from the merely 
curious a view of its defensive 
works, and the intruder with a 
camera, however harmless and 
inoffensive he may be, is severely 
dealt with as though he had pro- 
faned the Holy of Holies. Des- 
pite these drastic precautions 
against the harmless tourist it is 
a recognized fact that every 
government has in its files plans 
and descriptions of the forts of 
any power with which it is at all 
likely to become involved in war. 
It may be said, however, with- 
out entering into prohibited de- 
tails, that by the fortifications 
on the islands, and on the hills 
adjacent to the canal entrance, 
as well as b)^ a permanent sys- 
tem of submarine mines the Pa- 
cific entrance to the canal is 
made as nearly impregnable as 
the art of war permits. The 
locks at Miraflores are seven miles 
inland and the effective range of 
naval guns is fourteen miles, so 
that but for the fortifications and 
a fleet of our own to hold the 
hostile fleet well out to sea the 
very keystone of the canal 



structure would be menaced. Our government 
in building its new terminal city at Balboa had 
before it a very striking illustration of the way 
in which nations covet just such towns. Russia 
on completing her trans-Siberian railroad built 
at Port Arthur a terminal even grander and more 
costly than our new outpost on the Pacific. But 
the Japanese flag now waves over Port Arthur — 
and incidentally the fortifications of that famous 
terminal were also considered impregnable. Perhaps 
the impregnable fort like the unsinkable ship is 
yet to be found. 




Photo by Underwood 6: Underwood 



THE PACIFIC GATEWAY 
The gun points to canal entrance; high hills in the background are beyond the canal 



146 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



At Balboa the trip through the completed canal 
will be ended. It has covered a fraction over fifty 
miles, and has consumed, according to the speed of the 
ship and the "smartness" of her handling in locks, 
from seven to ten hours. He who was fortunate 
enough to make that voyage may well reflect on the 
weeks of time and the thousands of tons of coal neces- 
sary to carry his vessel from Colon to Balboa had 
the canal not existed. 

From Balboa to the ancient and yet gay city of 
Panama runs a trolley line by which the passenger, 
whose ship remains in port for a few days, or even 
a few hours, may with but little cost of time or money 
visit one of the quaintest towns on the North Ameri- 
can continent. If the climate, or the seemingly in- 
eradicable sluggishness of the Panamanian do not 
intervene the two towns should grow into one, 
though their governments must remain distinct, as 
the Republic of Panama naturally clings to its capi- 



tal city. But seemingly the prospect of a great new 
port at his doors, open to the commerce of all the 
world, where ships from Hamburg and Hong Kong, 
from London and Lima, from Copenhagen and from 
Melbourne may all meet in passing their world-wide 
ways, excites the Panamanian not a whit. He exists 
content with his town as it is, reaching out but little 
for the new trade which this busy mart next door 
to him should bring. No new hotels are rising within 
the line of the old walls ; no new air of haste or enter- 
prise enlivens the placid streets and plazas. Per- 
haps in time Balboa may be the big town, and Pan- 
ama as much outworn as that other Panama which 
Morgan left a mere group of ruins. It were a pity 
should it be so, for no new town, built of neat cement 
blocks, with a Y. M. C. A. club house as its crown- 
ing point of gaiety, can ever have the charm which 
even the casual visitor finds in ragged, bright- 
colored, crowded, gay and perhaps naughty Panama. 




I'holo bi/ Underwood dc Underwood 



COMPLETED CANAL AT COEOZAL 



CHAPTER VIII 



THE FORMATIVE PERIOD 




MERICAN control of the 
canal, as I have already 
pointed out, was taken over 
without any particular cere- 
mony immediately after the 
payment to Panama of the 
$10,000,000 provided for in 
the treaty. Indeed so 
slight was the friction in- 
cident to the transfer of 
ownership from the 
French to the Americans that several hundred la- 
borers employed on the Culebra Cut went on with 
their work serenely unconscious of any change in 
management. But though work was uninterrupted 
the organization of the directing force took time and 
thought. It took 
more than that. 
It demanded the 
testing out of 
men in high 
place and the 
rejection of the 
unfit ; patient ex- 
perimenting with 
methods and the 
abandonment of 
those that failed 
to produce re- 
sults. There was 
a long period of 
this experimental 
work which 
sorely tried the 
patience of the 
American people 
before the canal - 
digging organi- 
zation fell into 

Its stride and ruoto bu underwood * underwood 

moved on with tunnel for the 

147 



a certain and resistless progress toward the goal. 

In accordance with the Spooner act President 
Roosevelt on March 8, 1904, appointed the first 
Isthmian Canal Commission with the following per- 
sonnel : 

Admiral John G. Walker, U. S. N., Chairman, 

Major General George W. Davis, U. S. A., 

William Barclay Parsons, 

William H. Burr, 

Benjamin M. Harrod, 

Carl Ewald Gunsky, 

Frank J. Hecker. 

In 19 1 3 when the canal approached completion 
not one of these gentlemen was associated with it. 
Death had carried away Admiral Walker, but official 
mortality had ended the canal-digging careers of the 




OBISPO DIVERSION CANAL 



148 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



others. Indeed under the rule of President Roose- 
velt the tenure of office of Isthmian Commissioners 
was exceedingly slender and the whole commission as 
originally designed was finally aboUshed being re- 
placed by one made up, with one exception, of officers 
of the army and navy. The first commission visited 
the Isthmus, stayed precisely 24 days, ordered some 
new surveys and returned to the United States. 
The most important fact about its visit was that it 
was accompanied to 
the scene of work by 
an army surgeon, one 
Dr. W. C. Gorgas, who 
had been engaged in 
cleaning up Havana. 
Major Gorgas, to give 
him his army title, was 
not at this time a mem- 
ber of the Commission 
but had been ap- 
pointed Chief Sanitary 
Officer. I shall have 
much to say of his work 
in a later chapter; as 

for that matter Fame 

will have much to say 

of him in later ages. 

Col. Goethals, who will 

share that pinnacle 

was not at this time 

associated with the 

canal work. Coinci- 

dently with the Com.- 

mission's visit the. 

President appointed as 

chief engineer, John F. 

Wallace, at the mo- 



Plioto 6y Underwood & Underwood 

THE TWO COLONELS 



1905, to April I, 1907, and Col. George W. Goethals 
from April i, 1907, to the time of publication of this 
book and doubtless for a very considerable period 
thereafter. 

Each of these officials encountered new problems, 
serious obstacles, heartbreaking delays and disap- 
pointments. Two broke down under the strain; 
doubtless the one who took up the work last profited 
by both the errors and the successes of his predeces- 
sors. It is but human 
nature to give the high- 
est applause to him 
who is in at the death, 
to immortalize the 
soldier who plants the 
flag on the citadel, for- 
getting him who fell 
making a breach in the 
outer breastworks and 
thereby made possible 
the ultimate triumph. 
Wallace at the very 
outset had to overcome 
one grim and unrelent- 
ing enemy which was 
largely subdued before 
his successors took up 
the work. Yellow fever 
and malaria ravaged 
the Isthmus, as they 
had done from time 
immemorial, and al- 
though Sanitary Officer 
Gorgas was there with 
knowledge of how to 
put that foe to rout 
the campaign was yet 




ment general manao^er ^- C- Gorgas and George W. Goethals, whose combined work gave the canal to be begun. They Say 
° *= to the world 



of the Illinois Central 
Railroad. His salary was fixed at $25,000 a year. 
In telling the story of the digging of the Panama 
Canal we shall find throughout that the engineer 
outshines the Commission; the executive rather 
than the legislative is the ruling force. The story 



that Wallace had a 
lurking dread that before he could finish the canal 
the canal would finish him, and indeed he had 
sound reasons for that fear. He found the head- 
quarters of the chief engineer in the building on 
Avenida Centrale now occupied by the United States 



therefore groups itself into three chapters of very legation, but prior to his time tenanted by the French 

unequal length— namely the administrations as Director-General. The streets of the town were 

chief engineers of John, F. Wallace, from June i, unpaved, ankle deep in foul mire in the rainy season, 

1904, to June 28, 1905; John F. Stevens, June 30, and covered with germ-laden dust when dry. There 



THE BEGINNING OF WORK UNDER WALLACE 



149 



fm^?mfm. 






.-■'.•^ > . ■^ 



mtK 



'^ 



A WALK AT ANCON 



Aw 



i:^ 



i^ 



;••>• 



being no sewers the townsfolk 
with airy indifference to pub- 
lic health emptied their slops 
from the second-story win- 
dows feeling they had made 
sufficient concession to the .■'^ 

general welfare if they warned 
passersby before tilting the 
bucket. Yellow fever was al- 
ways present in isolated cases, 
and by the time Wallace had 
been on the job a few months it 
became epidemic, and among the 
victims was the wife of his secretary. 
However, the new chief engineer 
tackled the job with energy. There was 
quite enough to enlist his best energies. It 
must be remembered that at this date the 
fundamental problem of a sea level vs. a 
lock canal had not been determined — was 
not definitely settled indeed until 1906. 
Accordingly Engineer Wallace's first work 
was getting ready to work. He found 746 
men tickling the surface of Culebra Cut 
with hand tools; the old French houses, all 
there were for the new force had been seized 
upon by natives or overrun by the jungle; 
while the French had left great quantities 



•\.^:' 



m 



VffX^MJ 



of serviceable machinery it had been aban- 
doned in the open and required careful 
overhauling before being fit for use; the 
railroad was inadequate in track mileage 
and in equipment. Above all the labor 
problem was yet to be successfully solved. 
In his one year's service Wallace repaired 
357 French houses and built 48 new ones, 
but the task of housing the employees was 
still far from completed. Men swarmed 
over the old French machinery, cutting 
away the jungle, dousing the metal with 
Tosene and cleaning off the rust. 
Floating dredges were set to work 
in the channel at the Atlantic 
end — which incidentally has been 
abandoned in the completed 
plans for the canal though it 
was used in preliminary con- 
struction. The railroad was 
reequipped and extended and 
the foundation laid for the 
thoroughly up-to-date road 
it now is. Meanwhile the 
surveying parties were busy 
in the field collecting the data 
from which after a prolonged 
period of discussion, the vexed 
question of the tj^pe of canal, 
should be determined. 



^ -. -- r« .^.' ^^ I 




IN THE HOSPITAL GRDTNUS 



I50 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



Two factors in the situation made Wallace's job 
the hardest. The Commission made its head- 
quarters in Washington, 2000 miles or a week's 
journey away from the job, and the American people, 
eager for action, were making the air resound with 
crieS' of "make the dirt fly!" In a sense Wallace's 
position was not unlike that of Gen. McClellan in the 
opening months of the Civil War when the slogan of 
the northern press was "On to Richmond," and no 
thought was given to the obstacles in the path, or 
the wisdom of preparing fully for the campaign be- 
for it was begun. There are many who hold today 
that if Wallace had been deaf to those who wanted 
to see the dirt fly, had taken the men off the work of 
excavation until the type of canal had been deter- 
mined and all necessary housing and sanitation work 
had been completed, the results attained would 
have been better, and the strain which broke down 
this really capable engineer would have been averted. 

Red tape immeasurable wound about the Chief 
Engineer and all his assistants. Requisitions had 
to go to the Commission for approval and the 
Commission clung to Washington tenaciously, as all 
federal commissions do wherever the work they are 
commissioned to perform may be situated. During 
the Civil War days a story was current of a Major 
being examined for promotion to a colonelcy. 

"Now, Major," asked an examiner, "we will con- 



sider, if you please, the case of a regiment just ordered 
into battle. What is the usual position of the 
colonel in such a case?" 

"On Pennsylvania Avenue, about Willard's 
Hotel," responded the Major bravely and truth- 
fully. 

The officers who directed Wallace's fighting force 
clung to Pennsylvania Avenue and its asphalt rather 
than abide with Avenida Centrale and its mud. 
So too did succeeding commissions until Theodore 
Roosevelt, who had a personal penchant for being 
on the firing line, ordered that all members of the 
Commission should reside on the Isthmus. At that 
he had trouble enforcing the order except with the 
Army and Navy officers who made up five-sevenths 
of the Commission. 

How great was the delay caused by red tape and 
absentee authorities cannot be estimated. When 
requisitions for supplies reached Washington the 
regulations required that bids be advertised for. 
I rather discredit the current story that when a 
young Panamanian arrived at Ancon Hospital and 
the mother proved unable to furnish him with food, 
the doctor in charge was officially notified that if he 
bought a nursing bottle without advertising thirty 
days for bids he must do so at his own expense. 
That story seems too strikingly illustrative of red- 
tape to be true. But it is true that after Col. 




Fliulo ity UiiUtrivuod it Ullduwuod 



TRENCH COTTAGES ON THE WATER FRONT, CRISTOBAL 



THE ABSENTEE COMMISSIONERS AND THE RED TAPE 



151 



Gorgas had 
worked out his 
plans for fur- 
nishing run- 
ning water to 
Panama, and 
doing away 
with the cis- 
terns and great 
jars in which 
the residents 
stored water 
and bred mos- 
quitoes, it took 
nine months to 
get the iron 
pipes, ordinary 
ones at that, 
to Panama. 
M e anwhile 
street paving 
and sewerage 
were held up 
and when Wal- 
lace wired the 
Commission to 
hurry he was 
told to be less 
extravagant in 
his use of the 
cable. 

No man suf- 
fered more from this sort of official delay and 
stupidity than did Col. Gorgas. If any man was 
fighting for life it was he — not for his own life 
but that of the thousands who were working, or yet 
to work on the canal. Yet when he called for wire 
netting to screen out the malarial mosquitos he was 
rebuked by the Commission as if he were asking it 
merely to contribute to the luxury of the employees. 
The amount of ingenuity expended by the Com- 
mission in suggesting ways in which wire netting 
might be saved would be admirable as indicative 
of a desire to guard the public purse, except for the 
fact that in saving netting they were wasting hu- 
man lives. The same policy was pursued when ap- 
peals came in for additional equipment for the hospi- 
tals, for new machinery, for wider authority. When- 




PAY DAY FOR THE BLACK LABOR 



ever anything 
was to be done 
on the canal 
line the first 
word from 
Wa shington 
was always 
criticism — the 
policy instant- 
ly applied was 
delay. 

Allowing for 
the disadvan- 
tages under 
which he la- 
bored Mr. Wal- 
lace achieved 
great results in 
his year of ser- 
vice on the 
Isthmus. But 
his connection 
with the canal 
was ended in a 
way about 
which must 
ever hang some 
element of 
mystery. He 
complained 
bitterly, per- 
sistently and 
justly about the conditions in which he was com- 
pelled to work and found in President Roosevelt 
a sympathetic and a reasonable auditor. Indeed, 
moved by the Chief Engineer's appeals, the Presi- 
dent endeavored to secure from Congress authority 
to substitute a Commission of three for the un- 
wieldy body of seven with which Wallace found 
it so hard to make headway. Failing in this the 
President characteristically enough did by indirec- 
tion what Congress woiold not permit him to do 
directly. He demanded and received the resigna- 
tions of all the original coiTimissioners, and ap- 
pointed a new board with the following members: 
Theodore P. Shonts, Chairman, 
Charles E. Magoon, Governor of the Canal Zone, 
John F. Wallace, Chief Engineer, 



152 



PANAMA AND THE GANAL 



Mordecai T. Endicott, 

Peter C. Hains, 

Oswald H. Ernst, 

Benjamin M. Harrod. 

As in the case of the earUer commissioners none 
of these remained to see the work to a conclusion. 

This commission, though similar in form, was 
vastly different in fact from its predecessor. The 
President in appointing it had directed that its 
first three members 
should constitute an ex- 
ecutive committee, and 
that two of these, Gov. 
Magoon and Engineer 
Wallace, should reside 
continuously on the 
Zone. To further con- 
centrate power in Mr. 
Wallace's hands he was 
made Vice-President of 
the Panama Railroad. 
The President thus se- 
cured practically all he 
had asked of Congress, 
for the executive com- 
mittee of three was as 
, powerful as the smaller 
commission which Con- 
gress had refused him. 
In all this organization 
Mr. Wallace had been 
consulted at every step. 
He stayed for two 
months in Washington 
while the changes were 
in progress and ex- 
pressed his entire ap- 
proval of them. It was 
therefore with the ut- 
most amazement that the President received from 
him, shortly after his return to the Isthmus, a 
cable requesting a new conference and hinting at 
his resignation. 

At the moment that cable message was sent 
Panama was shuddering in the grasp of the last yel- 
low fever epidemic that has devastated that terri- 
tory. Perhaps had Col. Gorgas secured his wire 
netting earlier, or Wallace's appeals for water pipes 




Phuiii by L iidtrtiuud A. Underwood 

IN Wallace's time 
Sanitation work in Panama City- 



met with prompter attention it might have been 
averted. But in that May and June of 1905 the 
fever ravaged the town and the work camps almost 
as it had in the days of the French. There had been, 
as already noted, some scattered cases of yellow 
fever in the Zone when the Americans took hold, but 
they were too few and too widely separated to cause 
any general panic. The sanitary authorities how- 
ever noted with apprehension that they did not de- 
crease,' and that a very 
considerable proportion 
were fatal. It was about 
this time that the Com- 
mission was snubbing 
Col. Gorgas because of 
his insatiable demands 
for wire screening. In 
April there were seven 
cases among the em- 
ployees in the Commis- 
sion's headquarters in 
Panama. Three died and 
among the 300 other 
men employed there 
panic spread rapidly. 
Nobody cared about jobs 
any longer. From all 
parts of the Zone white- 
faced men flocked to the 
steamship offices to se- 
cure passage home. Sto- 
ries about the ravages 
of the disease among the 
French became current, 
and the men at work 
shuddered as they 
passed the little French 
cemeteries so plentifully 
scattered along the Zone. 
The sanitary forces wheeled out into the open and 
went into the fight. Every house in Panama and 
Colon was fumigated, against the bitter protests of 
many of the householders who would rather face 
yellow fever then the cleansing process, and who did 
not believe much in these scientific ideas of the 
"gringoes" anyway. An army of inspectors made 
house to house canvasses of the towns and removed, 
sometimes by force, all suspected victims to the iso- 




COPiKiCHT, 1913, BV r. E. HKICIII 



THE WASHING PLACE AT TABOGA 

Taboga, site of the Commission sanitarium, Ls the most picturesque point readily accessible from Panama City. 
The laundry place is the gathering point for the women of the village. 



THE SUCCESSFUL WAR WITH YELLOW FEVER 



153 



lation hospitals. The mahgnant mosquitoes, cour- 
iers of the infection, were pursued patiently by regi- 
ments of men who slew all that were detected and 
deluged the breeding places with larvacide. The 
war of science upon sickness soon began to tell. 
June showed the high-water mark of pestilence with 
sixty-two cases, and six deaths. From that point 
it declined until in December the last case was 



reaching New York he met the then Secretary of 
War, afterwards President, William Howard Taft, 
to whom he expressed dissatisfaction with the situ- 
ation and asked to be relieved at the earliest possible 
moment. Secretary Taft declined to consider his 
further association with the canal, for a moment, de- 
manded that his resignation take effect at once and 
reproached him for abandoning the work in words 




THE FUMIGATION BRIGADE 
When the members of this command finished with a district in Panama the mosquito was done for 



registered. Since then there has been no case of 
yellow fever originating on the Isthmus, and the 
few that have been brought there have been so 
segregated that no " infection has resulted. 

It was, however, when the epidemic was at its 
height that Mr. Wallace returned from Washington 
to the Isthmus. Almost immediately he cabled 
asking to be recalled and the President, with a pre- 
monition of impending trouble, so directed. On 



that stung, and which when reiterated in a letter 
and published the next day put the retiring engineer 
in a most unenviable position. From this position 
he never extricated himself. Perhaps the fear of 
the fever, of which he thought he himself had a slight 
attack, shook his nerve. Perhaps, as the unchari- 
table thought and the Secretary flatly charged, a 
better position had offered itself just as he had be- 
come morally bound to finish the canal work. Or 



154 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




TYPICAL SCREENED HOUSES 

perhaps he concluded in the time he had for cool re- 
flection on the voyage to Panama that the remedies 
offered for the red tape, divided authority and delay 
that had so handicapped him were inadequate. His 
communication to the press at the time was uncon- 
vincing. The fairest course to pursue in the matter 
is to accept Mr. Wallace's own statement made to a 
congressional investigating committee nearly a year 
later, in answer to a question as to the cause of his 
resignation : 

"My reason was, that I was made jointly respon- 
sible with Mr. Shonts and Mr. Magoon for work on 
the canal, while Mr. Shonts had a verbal agreement 
with the President that he should have a free rein 
in the management of all 
matters. I felt Mr. Shonts 
was not as well qualified as I 
was either as a business man 
or an administrator, and he 
was not an engineer. ... I 
thought it better to sacrifice 
my ambitions regarding this 
work, which was to be the 
crowning event of my life, 
than remain to be humiliated, 
forced to disobey orders, or 
create friction." 

The Wallace resignation 
was at the moment most un- 
fortunate. There had for 
months been an almost con- 
certed effort on the part 



of a large and influential section of the press, 
and of men having the public ear to decry the 
methods adopted at Panama, to criticize the 
men engaged in the work and to magnify the 
obstacles to be overcome. Perhaps this chorus 
of detraction was stimulated in part by advo- 
cates of the Nicaragua route hoping to reopen 
that controversy. Probably the transcontinental 
railroads, wanting no canal at all, had a great deal 
to do with it. At any rate it was loud and insistent 
and the men on the Isthmus were seriously affected 
by it. They knew by Mr. Wallace's long absence 
that some trouble was brewing in Washington. 
His sudden departure again after his return from the 
capital and the rumor that he had determined to 
take a more profitable place added to the unrest. 
Probably the rather severe letter of dismissal with 
which Secretary Taft met the Chief Engineer's letter 
of resignation, and the instantaneous appointment 
in his place of John F. Stevens, long associated with 
James J. Hill in railroad building, at a salary $5000 
a year greater, was the best tonic for the tired feeling 
of those on the Isthmus. It indicated that the 
President thought those who had accepted positions 
of command on the Canal Zone had enlisted for the 
war, and that they could not desert in the face of 
the enemy without a proper rebuke. It showed 
furthermore that the loss of one man would not be 
permitted to demoralize the service, but that the cry 
familiar on the line of battle "Close up! Close up, 




A STREET AFTER PAVING 
Before paving it was of the sort shown on page 39 



THE CHANGE FROM WALLACE TO STEVENS 



155 



men! Forward"! was to be the ral- 
lying cry in the attack on the hills 
of Panama. 

Despite the unfortunate circum- 
stances attending Mr. Wallace's re- 
tirement, his work had been good, 
so far as it went. In office a little 
more than a year he had spent more 
than three months of the time in 
Washington or at sea. But he had 
made more than a beginning in sys- 
tematizing the work, in repairing the 
railroad, in renovating the old ma- 
chinery and actually making "the 
dirt fly". Of that objectionable sub- 
stance — on the line of the canal, if 
anywhere, they applaud the defini- 
tion "dirt is matter out of place" 
— he had excavated 744,644 yards. 
Not much of a showing judged by 
the records of 1913, but excellent for the machinery 
available in 1905. The first steam shovel was in- 
stalled during his regime and before he left nine 
were working. The surveys, under his direction, 





STOCKADE FOR PETTY CANAL ZONE OFFENDERS 



HOSPITAL BUILDINGS, UNITED FRUIT CO. 

were of great advantage to his successor who never 

failed to acknowledge their merit. 

Mr. Stevens, who reached the canal, adopted at 

the outset the wise determination to reduce con- 
struction work 
to the mini- 
mum and con- 
centrate effort 
on completing 
arrangements 
for housing and 
feeding the 
army of work- 
ers which might 
be expected as 
soon as the 
interminable 
question of the 
sealevelorlock 
canal could be 
finally deter- 
mined. From 
his administra- 
tion dates 
much of the 
good work done 
in the organi- 
zation of the 



156 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Fhoto by uiiaciwuud tt undcrwtjuu 



BEGINNING THE NEW DOCKS, CRISTOBAL 



Commissary and Subsistence Department, and the 
development of the railroad. The inducement of free 
quarters added to high wages to attract workers also 
originated with him. At the same time Gov. Magoon 
was working over the details of civil administration, 
the schools, courts, police system and road building. 
The really fundamental work of canal building, the 
preparation of the ground for the edifice yet to be 
erected, made great forward strides at this period. 
But the actual record of excavation was but small. 

One reason for this was the hesitation over the 
type of canal to be adopted. It is obvious that 
several hundred thousand cubic yards of dirt dug 
out of a ditch have to be dumped somewhere. If 
deposited at one place the dump would be in the 
way of a sea-level canal while advantageous for the 
lock type. At another spot this condition would 
be reversed. Already the Americans had been 
compelled to move a second time a lot of spoil 
which the French had excavated, and which, under 
the American plans, was in danger of falling back 
into Culebra Cut. "As a gift of prophecy is with- 
held from us in these latter days," wrote Stevens 
plaintively in reference to the vacillation concerning 
the plans, "all we can do now is to make such 
arrangements as may look proper as far ahead as 
we can see." 

President Roosevelt meanwhile was doing all he 
could to hasten determination of the problem. 



Just before the appointment of Mr. Stevens he ap- 
pointed an International Board of Advisory Engi- 
neers, five being foreign and nine American, to exam- 
ine into the subject and make recommendations. 
They had before them a multiplicity of estimates, 
upon which to base their recommendations and it 
may be noted eight years after the event that not 
one of the estimates came within one hundred mil- 
lion dollars of the actual cost. From which it ap- 
pears that when a nation undertakes a great public 
work it encounters the same financial disillusion- 
ments that come to the young homebuilder when 
he sets out to build hirn a house from architect's plans, 
guaranteed to keep the cost within a fixed amount. 
Poor De Lesseps estimated the cost of a sea-leveL 
canal at $131,000,000, though it is fair to say for the 
French engineers whose work is so generally ap- 
plauded by our own that their estimate was several, 
million dollars higher. The famous International 
Congress had estimated the cost of a sea-level canal 
at $240,000,000. In fact the French spent $260,- 
000,000 and excavated about 80,000,000 cubic yards 
of earth! Then came on our estimators. The 
Spooner act airily authorized $135,000,000 for a. 
canal of any type, and is still in force though we: 
have already spent twice that amount. The Walker- 
Commission fixed the cost of a sea-level canal with, 
a dam at Alhajuela and a tide lock at Miraflores at. 
$240,000,000. The majority of President Roose- 



THE VARYING ESTIMATES OF THE CANAL'S COST 



157 




Pholo by Underwood d; Underwood 



A BACK STREET IN COLON 
This street is as clean and well paved as any in the United States 



velt's Board of Advisory Engineers reported in favor 
of a sea-level canal and estimated its cost at $250,- 
000,000; the minority declared for a lock canal 
fixing its cost "in round numbers" at $140,000,000. 
Engineer Wallace put the cost of a sea-level canal at 
$300,000,000 exclusive of the $50,000,000 paid for 
the Canal Zone. Col. Goethals came in in 1908, 
with the advantage of some years of actual con- 
struction, and fixed the cost of the sea-level canal at 
$563,000,000 and the lock type at $375,000,000. 
He guesses best who guesses last, but it may be sug- 
gested in the vernacular of the streets that even 
Col. Goethals "had another guess coming". 

On all these estimates the most illuminating com- 
ment is furnished by the Official Handbook of the 
Panama Canal for 19 13 showing total expenditures 
to November i, 1912, of $270,625,624 exclusive of 
fortification expenditures. The Congressional ap- 



propriations to the same date, all of which were 
probably utilized by midsummer of 1913, were 
$322,551,448.76. 

The action of his Advisory Board put President 
Roosevelt for the moment in an embarrassing posi- 
tion. A swinging m-ajority declared for a sea-level 
canal, and even when the influence of Engineer 
Stevens, who was not a member of the Board, was 
exerted for the lock type it left the advocates of that 
form of canal still in the minority. To ask a body 
of eminent scientists to advise one and then have 
them advise against one's own convictions creates 
a perplexing situation. But Roosevelt was not one 
to allow considerations of this sort to weigh much 
with him when he had determined a matter in his 
own mind. Accordingly he threw his influence for 
the lock type, sent a resounding message to Congress 
and had the satisfaction of seeing his views approved 



158 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




STEAM SHOVEL AT WORK 

by that body June 29, 1906. It had been two j^ears 
and two months since the Americans came to 
Panama, and though at last the form of canal was 
determined upon there are not lacking today men 
of high scientific and political standing who hold 
that an error 
was made, and 
that ultimate- 
ly the great 
locks will be 
ab an done d 
and the canal 
bed brought 
down to tide 
water. 

The Ameri- 
cans on the 
Isthmus now 
got fairly into 
their stride. 
Determina- 
tion of the 
type of canal 
at once deter- 
mined the 
need for the 
Gatun Dam, 
spillway and 
locks. It ne- 
cessitated the 
shifting of the 
roadbed of 



the Panama railroad as the original bed would 
be covered by the new lake. The development 
of the commissary system which supplied every 
thing needful for the daily life of the employee, 
the establishment of quarters, the creation of 
a public school system, were all well under way. 
Then arose a new issue which split the second Com- 
mission and again threatened to turn things topsy- 
turvy. 

Chairman Shonts, himself a builder of long ex- 
perience and well accustomed to dealing with con- 
tractors, was firmly of the opinion that the canal 
could best be built by letting contracts to private 
bidders for the work. In this he was opposed by 
most of his associates, and particularly by Mr. 
Stevens who had been working hard and efficiently 
to build up an organization that would be capable 
of building the canal without the interposition of 
private contractors looking for personal profit. The 
employees on the Zone, naturally enough, were with 
Stevens to a man, and time has shown that he and 




THE BALBOA ROAD 
The trolley line shown will extend from Balboa, through Panama and Ancon to the ruins of Old Panama 



THE RESIGNATION OF ENGINEER STEVENS 



159 




Photo by Underwood & Underwood 



A DRILL BARGE AT WORK 
The sea and tidal waters are underlaid with coral rock necessitating much submarine blasting 



they were right. There is something about working 
for the nation that stirs a man's loyalty as mere 
private employment never can. But in this in- 
stance Mr. Shonts was in Washington, convenient to 
the ear of the President while Mr. Stevens was on 
the Zone. Accordingly the President approved of 
the Chairman's plan, and directed the Secretary 
of War, Mr. Taft, to advertise for bids. Mr. 
Stevens was discontented and showed it. That his 
judgment would be justified in the end he could not 
know. That it had been set aside for the moment 
he was keenly aware, and that he was being harassed 
by Congress and by innumerable rules such as no 
veteran railroad builder had ever been subjected to 
did not add to his comfort. 

His complaints to the Secretary of War were 
many, and not of a sort to contribute to that of- 
ficial's peace of mind. When the bids came in from 
the would-be contractors they were all rejected on 
the ground that they did not conform to the speci- 
fications, but the real reason was that the President 
at heart did not believe in that method of doing the 
work, and was sure that the country agreed with 
him. This should have allayed Mr. Stevens' rising 



discontent. It certainly offended Chairman Shonts, 
who stood for the contract system, and when the 
bids were rejected and that system set aside promptly 
resigned. The President thereupon consolidated the 
offices of Chairman of the Commission and Chief 
Engineer in one, Mr. Stevens being appointed 
that one. Given thus practically unlimited power 
Mr. Stevens might have been expected to be pro- 
foundly contented with the situation. Instead he 
too resigned on the first of April, 1907. 

About his resignation as about that of Mr. Wal- 
lace there has always been a certain amount of mys- 
tery. He himself made no explanation of his act, 
though his friends conjectured that he was not 
wholly in harmony with the President's plan to 
abolish the civilian commission altogether, and fill 
its posts by appointments from the Army and Na\^^ 
On the Isthmus there is a story that he did not in- 
tend to resign at all. Albert Edwards, who heard 
the story early, tells it thus: 

"One of the canal employees, who was on very 
friendly terms with Stevens, came into his office and 
found him in the best of spirits. When the business 
in hand was completed he said jovially: 



i6o 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




l^rtulo by S. H. Elliott 



PACiriC ENTRANCE TO THE CANAL 



"'Read this. I've just been easing my mind 
to T. R. It's a hot one — isn't it?' And he handed 
over the carbon copy of his letter. His visitor read 
it with great seriousness. 

'"Mr. Stevens', he said, 'that is the same as a 
resignation'. 

"And Stevens laughed. 

'"Why, I've said that kind of thing to the Colonel 
a dozen times. He knows I don't mean to quit this 
job'. 

"But about three hours after the letter reached 
Washington Mr. Stevens received a cablegram: 
■* Your resignation accepted ' " . - 

At any rate the Stevens resignation called forth 
no such explosive retort as had been directed against 
the unhappy Wallace, and he showed no later signs 
■of irritation, but came to the defense of his successor 
in a letter strongly approving the construction of 
certain locks and dams which were for the moment 
the targets' of general public criticism. 

Two weeks before Stevens resigned the other 
members of the Commission, excepting Col. Gorgas, 
in response to a hint from the President had sent 
in their resignations. Mr. Roosevelt had deter- 
mined that henceforward the work should be done 
iDy army and navy officers, trained to go where the 
work was to be done and to stay there until recalled ; 
men who had entered the service of the nation for 
life and were not looking about constantly to "better 



their conditions". He had determined further that 
the government should be the sole contractor, the 
only employer, the exclusive paymaster, landlord 
and purveyor of all that was needful on the Zone. 
In short he had planned for the Canal Zone a form of 
administration which came to be called socialistic 
and gave cold chills to those who stand in dread of 
that doctrine. To carry out these purposes he ap- 
pointed on April i, 1907, the following commission: 

Lieut. -Col. George W. Goethals, Chairman and 
Chief Engineer, 

Major D. D. Gaillard, U. S. A'., 

Major William L. Sibert, U. S. A., 

Mr. H. H. Rousseau, U. S. N., 

Col. W. C. Gorgas, U. S. A., Medical Corps, 

Mr. J. C. S. Blackburn, 

Mr. Jackson Smith, 

Mr. Joseph Bucklin Bishop, Secretary. 

A majority of this commission was in office at the 
time of publication of this book, and gave evidences 
of sticking to the job until its completion. Senator 
Blackburn resigned in 19 10 and was succeeded by 
Hon. Maurice H. Thatcher, also of Kentucky; and 
Mr. Smith retired in favor of Lieut. Col. Hodges in 
1908. In June, 1913, Commissioner Thatcher re- 
signed and was succeeded by Richard L. Metcalfe 
of Nebraska. With the creation of "this commission 
began the forceful and conclusive administration 
of Col. Goethals, the man who finished the canal. 



CHAPTER IX 

COL. GOETHALS AT THE THROTTLE 





K^ 






1 


^^■^~^¥l 


.1 


Kf^ 






^^Rh«.«— -fc^^,^ 






1 a 


Pr-T"! 


fep^ 



HE visitor to the Canal Zone 
about 1 913 could hardly 
spend a day in that bust- 
ling community without 
becoming aware of some 
mighty potentate not at all 
m3'sterious, but omnipres- 
ent and seemingly omnis- 
cient, to whom all matters 
at issue were referred, to 
whom nothing was secret, 
whose word was law and without whose counte- 
nance the mere presence of a visitor on the Zone was 
impossible. The 
phrases most in use 
were " see the 
Colonel," "ask the 
Colonel" and "the 
Colonel says". If 
there had been a 
well-conducted news- 
paper on the Zone 
these phrases would 
have been cast in 
slugs in its com- 
posing room for re- 
peated and ready 
use. No President 
of the United States, 
not even Lincoln in 
war times, exerted 
the authority he 
daily employed in 
the zenith of his 
power. The ag- 
grieved wife appealed 
to his offices for the 
correction of her 
marital woes, and 
the corporation with 
a $600,000 steam 
crane to sell talked 
over its characteris- 
tics with the Colonel. 




I'/wto by Vndcni-ood tt Ufidcncood 

COL. GOETHALS AT HIS DESK 
161 



He could turn from a vexed question of adjusting 
the work of the steam shovels to a new slide in the 
Culebra Cut, to compose the differences of rival 
dancing clubs over dates at the Tivoli Hotel ball- 
room. On all controverted questions there was but 
one court of last resort. As an Isthmian poetaster 
put it: 

"See Colonel Goethals, tell Colonel Goethals, 
It's the only right and proper thing to do. 

Just write a letter, or even better 
Arrange a little Sunday interview ". 

Engineer Stevens in a speech made at the moment 
of his retirement before a local club of workers said : 

"You don't need 
me any longer. All 
you have to do now 
is to dig a ditch. 
What you want is a 
statesman". 

A statesman was 
found and his finding 
exemplifies strikingly 
the fact that when 
a great need arises 
the man to meet it 
is always at hand, 
though frequently in 
obscurity. Major 
George W. Goethals 
of the General Staff, 
stationed at Wash- 
ington was far from 
being in the public 
eye. Anyone who 
knows his Washing- 
ton well knows that 
the General Staft" is 
a sort of general 
punching bag for 
officers of the Army 
who cannot get ap- 
pointments to it, 
and for newspaper 
correspondents who 



1 62 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




are fond of describ- 
ing its members as 
fusty bureaucrats 
given to lolling in 
the Army and Navy 
Club while the Army 
sinks to the level of 
a mere ill-ordered 
militia. But even 
in this position 
Major Goethals had 
not attained sufficient 
eminence to have 
been made a target 
for the slings and 
arrows of journal- 
istic criticism. As a 
member of the Board 
of Fortifications, 

however, he had attracted the attention of Secretary 
Taft, and through him had been brought into per- 
sonal relations with President Roosevelt. 

Of course when a man has "made good" every- 
body is quick to discern in him the qualities which 
compel success. But Roosevelt must have been able 
to discover them in the still untested Goethals, for 
when the Stevens resignation reached Washington 
the President at once turned to him with the remark, 
"I've tried two civilians in the Canal and they've 
both quit. We can't build the canal with a new 
chief engineer every year. Now I'm going to give 
it to the Army and to somebody who can't quit." 

John F. Stevens 
resigned April i, 
1907, and on the 




Pholo T}y I tl r 



R'VILWW STATION AT GATUN 



The Panama Railroad is being equipped with stations and rolhng 
stoclv of the first-class 



PRESIDENT TAFT ARRIVES 

same day Col. Goethals became Chief Engineer 
of the Panama Canal, and the supreme arbiter of 
the destinies of all men and things on the Canal 
Zone. Everybody with a literary turn of mind who 
goes down there describes him as the Benevolent 
Despot, and that crabbed old philosopher Thomas 
Carlyle would be vastly interested could he but see 
how the benevolent despotism which he described 
as ideal but impossible is working successfully down 
in the semi-civilized tropics. 

Before describing in detail Col. Goethals' great 
work, the digging of the canal, let me relate some 
incidents which show what manner of man it was 
that took the reins when the Americans on the 
ditch swung into their winning stride. 

This is the way they tell one story on the Isthmus: 

A somewhat fussy and painfully perturbed man 
bustled into the office of Col. Goethals one morning 
and plunged into his tale of woe. 

"Now I got that letter of yours. Colonel", he 
began but stopped there checked by a cold gaze 
from those quiet blue eyes. 

"I beg your pardon", said the Colonel suavely, 
"but you must be mistaken. I have written you 
tio letter". 

"Oh, yes, Colonel, it was about that work down 
at Miraflores". 

"Oh, I see. You spoke a little inaccurately. You_ 



WHAT THE COLONEL MEANT BY ORDERS 



163 



meant you received my orders, not a letter. You 
have the orders, so that matter is settled. Was 
there anything else you wished to talk with me 
about"? 

But the visitor's topic of conversation had been 
summarily exhausted and, somewhat abashed, he 
faded away. 

And again : A high official of the Isthmian Com- 
mission had been somewhat abruptly translated from 
the Washington office to Ancon. There was no 



He spoke of his fears to the Colonel at lunch one 
day. 

"Let's walk over to the site and see", remarked 
that gentleman calmly. It may be noted in passing 
that walking over and seeing is one of the Colonel's 
favorite stunts. There are mighty few, if any, 
points on the Canal Zone which he has not walked 
over and seen, with the result that his knowledge 
of the progress of the work is not only precise but 
personal. But to return to the house a-building. 




COL. GOETHALS REVIEWING THE M.ARINES AT CAMP ELLIOTT 



house suitable for his occupancy and the Colonel 
ordered one built to be ready, let us say, October 
first. Meanwhile the prospective tenant and his 
family abode at the Tivoli Hotel which, even to 
one enjoying the reduced rates granted to employees, 
is no inexpensive spot. Along about the middle of 
August he began to get apprehensive. A few 
foundation pillars were all tliat was to be seen of 
the twelve-room house, of the type allotted to 
members of the Commission, which was to be his. 



On arrival there three or four workmen were found 
plugging away in a leisurely manner under the eye 
of a foreman to whom the Colonel straightway 
addressed himself, "You understand the orders 
relative to this job"? he said to the foreman, 
tentatively. 

"Oh, yes. Colonel", responded that functionary 
cheerfully, "it is ordered for October first, and we 
are going to do our very best". 

"Pardon me", blandly but with a suspicion of 



164 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




satire, "I was afraid you 
did not understand the order 
and I see I was right. Your 
order is to have this liouse 
ready for occupancy October 
first. There isn't anything 
said about doing your best. 
The house is to be finished 
at the time fixed". 
■ Turning, the Colonel 
walked away, giving no heed 
to the effort of the foreman 
to reopen the conversation. 
Next day that individual called 
on the prospective tenant. 

"Say", he began ingratiat- 
ingly, " you don't really need 
to be in that house October 
first, do you? Would a few 
days more or less make any 
difference to you"? 

"Not a bit". ' 

"Well, then", cheering up, "won't you just tell 
the Colonel a little delay won't bother you"? 

"Not I! I want to stay on this Isthmus. If 
you want to 
try to get the 
Colonel's or- 
ders changed 
you do it. 
But none of 
that for me". 

And the 
day before 
the time fixed 
the house was 
turned over 
complete. 

It is fair to 
say however 
that peremp- 
tory as is Col. 
Goethals in 
his orders, and 
implacable in 
his insistence 
on literal 
obedience, he 





PRESIDENT TAFT AND "THE COLONEL 




Plioio by 'JndcTwood & Uriderwood 

The upper part shows a i6-inch rifle being tested at Sandy Hook. The gun, which is of the 
type adopted for the Canal defenses, throws a 2,400 pound shell to an extreme range of 22 miles. 
It could drop a shell into Wall Street from Sandy Hook. One shell striking a battleship fairly 
would put her out of business. The lower part of picture shows co.mparative size of the gun 



yields to the orders of those 
who rank him precisely what 
he exacts from those whom 
he commands. The following 
dialogue from a hearing be- 
fore the House Committee on 
Appropriations wHl illustrate 
my point. The subject mat- 
ter was the new Washington 
Hotel at Colon. 

"The Chairman: Did you 
ever inquire into the right of 
the Panama Railroad Com- 
pany, under the laws of the 
State of New York, to go into 
the hotel business? 

' ' Col. Goethals: No sir ; I got 
an order from the President 
of the United States to build 
that hotel and I built it". 

This military habit of ab- 
solute command and implicit 
obedience is not attended in Col. Goethals' case 
with any of what civilians are accustomed to call 
"fuss and feathers". On the Zone he was never 

seen in uni- 
form, and it is 
said, indeed, 
that he 
brought none 
to Panama. 
His mind in 
fact is that of 
the master, 
not of the 
martinet. If 
he compels 
obedience, he 
commands re- 
spect and 
seems to in- 
spire real 
affection. . In 
a stay of some 
weeks at Pan- 
ama during 
which time I 
associated in- 



THE COLONEL'S SUNDAY MORNING COURT 



16.=; 




COL. GOETHALS ENCOURAGES THE NATIONAL GAME 



timately with men in every grade of the Commis- 
sion's service I heard not one word of criticism of 
his judgment, his methods or even his personality. 
This is the more remarkable when it is considered 
how intimately his authority is concerned with the 
personal life of the Isthmian employees. If one 
wishes to write a magazine article pertaining to 
the Canal Zone the manuscript must be submitted 
to the Colonel. If complaint is to be made of a 
faulty house, or bad commissary service, or a 
negligent doctor, or a careless official in any posi- 
tion it is made to the Colonel. He is the Haroun 
al Raschid of all the Zone from Cristobal to 
Ancon. To his personal courts of complaint, held 
Sunday mornings when all the remainder of the 
canal colony is at rest, come all sorts and condi- 
tions of employees with every imaginable grievance. 



The court is wholly inofficial but terribly effective. 
There is no uniformed bailiff with his cry of "Hear 
ye! Hear ye"! No sheriff with jingling handcuffs. 
But the orders of that court, though not registered 
in any calf -bound law books for the use of genera- 
tions of lawyers, are obeyed, or, if not obeyed, en- 
forced. Before this judge any of the nearly 50,000 
people living under his jurisdiction, speaking 45 
different languages, and citizens in many cases of 
nations thousands of miles away, may come with 
any grievance however small. The court is held 
of a Sunday so as not to interfere with the work 
of the complainants, for you will find that on the 
Zone the prime consideration of every act is to 
avoid interference with work. The Colonel hears 
the complaints patiently, awards judgment promptly 
and sees that it is enforced. There is no system 



1 66 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



evident air of having been ill-used. He had been 
discharged and the Colonel promptly inquired why. 
"Because I can't play baseball", was the sur- 
prising response 'of the discharged 
one, who had been a 



of constitutional checks and balances in his domain. 
He is the legislative, judicial and executive branches 
in one — or to put it less technically but more under- 
standably, what the Colonel says goes. It is, I 
think, little less than marvelous that a man in the 
continual exercise of such a power should awaken steamshoveler, 
so little criticism as he. It is 
true that those who displease him 
he may summarily deport, thus ef- 
fectually stilling any local clamor 
against his policy, but I am un- 
able to discover that he has mis- 
used, or even often used, this power. 
'A young man comes in with an 
important problem affecting the 
social life of the Zone. His par- 
ticular dancing club desires to use 
the ball room at the Tivoli Hotel 
on a certain night, but the room 
was engaged for that date and the 
other nights suggested did not fit 
the convenience of the club, so 

there was nothing to do but to put it vip to the It appeared on inquiry that the drill men had 
Colonel, who put aside the responsibilities of the challenged the steamshovelers to a match at the 
head of a $400,000,000 canal job and President of national game, and dire apprehensions of defeat filled 
the Panama Railway to fix a date whereon the the minds of the latter because they had no pitcher, 
young folk of that aspiring social club might At this juncture there providentially appeared a 
Turkey trot and Tango to their hearts' content, man seeking a job who was a scientific twirler 
So far as I know the Colonel has not yet been whether he knew much about steamshoveling or 
appealed to by the moralists of the Zone to censor not. The American sporting spirit was aroused. 




Fholu Uij I ndiTnuod d, L ndtrwood 

THE colonel's DAILY STROLL 



the dances. 

Troubles between workmen and their bosses of 
course make up a considerable share of the business 
before the court. Once a man came in with an 




OLD iRENCH LADDER DREDGES STILL USED 



The man with the job who couldn't pitch lost it 
to the man who could but had no job. So he came 
to the Colonel with his tale of woe. 

Now that sagacious Chief Engineer knows that 
the American sporting spirit is one of the great 
forces to be relied upon for the completion of 
the canal. The same sentiment which led the 
shovelers to use every device 
to down the drillers at base- 
ball would ani- 
mate them 
when they 
were called to 
fight with the 
next slide for 
possession of 
Culebra Cut. 
Some employ- 



THE AUTOCRATIC POWER OF COL. GOETHALS 



167 



ers would have sent the man back to his boss with 
a curt order of reinstatement — and the shovelers 
would have lost the game and something of their 
spirit. So after a moment of reflection the Colonel 
said quietly to the man: 

"They want shovelers on the Pacific end. Go 
over there in the morning and go to work". 

The feudal authority, the patriarchal power which 
Col. Goethals possesses over the means of livelihood 
of every man on the Zone, nay more, over their 
very right to stay on the Zone at all, gives to his 
decisions more immediate effect than 
attends those of a court. The 
man who ■ incurs his dis 
pleasure may lose his 
job, be ousted from 
his lodgings and 
deported from 
the Isthmus if 
the Colonel so 
decrees. A 
Jamaican ne- 
gress came in 
t o complain 
that her hus- 
band took her 
earnings away 
from her ; would 
not work himself 
but lived and loafed 
on the fruits of her indus- 
try. The Colonel ordered the 
man to allow her to keep her earnings. 
The man demurred saying sullenly 
that the English law gave a husband command over 
his wife's wages. 

"All right," said the Colonel, "you're from 
Jamaica. I'll deport you both and you can get 
all the English law you want". 

The husband paid back the money he had con- 
fiscated and the pair stayed. 

Family affairs are aired in the Colonel's court to 
a degree which must somewhat abash that simple 
and direct warrior. What the dramatists call "the 
eternal triangle" is not unknown on the Zone, nor 
is the unscriptural practice of coveting your neigh- 
bor's wife wholly without illustration. For such 
situations the Colonel's remedy is specific and swift — 



deportation of the one that makes the trouble. 
Sometimes the deportation of two has been found 
essential, but while gossip of these untoward inci- 
dents is plentiful in the social circles of Culcbra 
and Ancon the judge in the case takes no part in it. 
It is not in me to write a character sketch of 
Col. Goethals. That is rather a task for one who 
has known him intimately and has been able to 
observe the earlier manifestations of those qualities 
that led President Roosevelt to select him as the 
supreme chief of the canal work. All his life he 
has been an army engineer, having a 
short respite from active work 
the field when he was 
professor of engineering 
at West Point. 
^^^^^^^ Fortifications and 
JH^ ''^H9^^H^ locks were his 

^^ a^^M^ specialties and 

fortifications 
and locks 
have engaged 
his chief at- 
tention since 
he undertook 
the Panama job. 
Perhaps it is due 
to his intensely 
military attitude that 
the public has insensi- 
bly come to look upon the 
canal in its quality as an aid to 
national defense rather than a stimulus 
to national commerce. For the 
Colonel any discussion of the need for fortifying 
the canal was the merest twaddle, and he had his 
way. He begged long for a standing army of 25,000 
men on the Zone, but it is doubtful whether he will 
win this fight. Moreover he would so subordinate 
all considerations to the military one that he urges 
the expulsion from the Zone of all save canal 
employees that the danger of betrayal ma}' be less. 
How far that policy shall be approved by Congress 
is yet to be determined. Thus far however the 
Colonel has handled Congress with notable success 
and even there his dominant spirit may yet triumph. 
Power on the Zone, however, autocratic and 
absolute. Col. Goethals possesses. It was conferred 




A SIDE DRILL CREW AX WORK 



1 68 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




THE COLONEL S FIRE WORKS 

A big blast in Culebra Cut. In one year 27,252 tons of dynamite were used 

on him formally by the order of Jan. 6, 1908, 
giving the Chairman authority to reorganize the 
service at his own discretion, subject of course to 
review by the President or Secretary of War. The 
first effect of this was the abolition of a large list 
of departments with high sounding names, and con- 
centration of their functions in 
the quartermaster's department 
with Major C. A. Devol at its 
head. The Colonel developed in 
fact a rage for abolishing and con- 
centrating departments. He did 
not go quite as far as Nero who 
wished that Rome had but one 
neck that he might strike off its 
head at a blow, but he certainly 
reduced the number of responsi- 
ble chiefs to such a point that it 
was easy to place the fault if 
work lagged or blunders mul- 
tiplied. 

Col. Goethals' first annual re 
port was issued after he had been 
in command only three months. 



covering therefore nine 
months of the Stevens 
administration, and was 
dated at the end of the 
fiscal year, June 30, 

1907. He reported that 
80 per cent, of the plant 
necessary for complet- 
ing the work was on 
the ground or had been 
ordered. When he ar- 
rived the high water- 
mark for excavating in 
Culebra Cut was 
900,000 cubic yards a 
month, and since his 
rule began it has never 
fallen below the million 
mark, except in May, 

1908. It may be noted 
in passing, that during 
the first two years of 
his administration the 
average for excavation 

along the whole line exceeded three million cubic 
yards a month. During the whole administration 
of Messrs. Wallace and Stevens only six million 
yards had been removed. The contrasting figures 
are given not as reflecting on the earlier engineers, 
but as indicating the rapidity with which the equip- 




I'now oy Unacravod & Vndcncood 

A HEAVY BLAST UNDER WATER 



THE PANAMA WORK SHOWS GOVERNMENTAL EFFICIENCY 



169 



ment and efficiency of 
the canal organization 
were increased when the 
battle of the levels was 
ended and the civilian 
commission done away 
with. 

In this report Col. 
Goethals argued vigor- 
ously against turning 
over the canal work to 
private contractors — a 
matter which the Pres- 
ident had asked him to 
report upon in detail. 
He pointed out that the 
canal required special 

equipment for which no contractor could find use 
after the expiration of his contract and which there- 
fore the government might just as well buy and own 
itself. The force of this argument became particu- 
larly apparent as the work approached completion. 
Projects for the utilization of the plant were sent in- 
to Congress from every section of the country. It 
was strongly urged that the plant be sent en bloc to 
Alaska to build rail- 
roads and open that 
rich, but long shut-in 
. territory to settlement 
and development. 
Other friends of the 
reclamation service 
urged that it be em- 
ployed i n draining 
semi-submerged lands 
in the Mississippi Val- 
ley and digging irri- 
gating ditches in the 
Southwest. The floods 
of the spring of 19 13 
caused an active de- 
mand for its employ- 
.rnent on Ohio rivers. 

It is fair to note that Mr. Stevens made the 
first energetic fight for the establishment of 
the system under which the government owns 
this colossal and almost invaluable plant, while Col. 
Goethals' recommendation put upon it the final 




THE COLONEL S DAILY MEAL 



stamp of official ap- 
proval. 

This act has impor- 
tance which will long 
outlive the construction 
period of the canal. By 
the time that work is 
completed it will have 
demonstrated beyond 
doubt that the United 
States government is 
perfectly capable of do- 
ing its own construction 
work without the inter- 
vention of private con- 
tractors ; that it not only 
can build the biggest dam 
in the world, erect the mightiest locks that ever raised 
a ship, and dig a channel through the backbone of 
a continent, but is quite able to perform the lesser 
functions incident thereto. It can, and did, success- 
fully conduct hotels and a railroad and steamship 
line, maintain eating-houses and furnish household 
supplies. After the Panama exhibit it will take 
either a brave or a singularly stupid man to preach 




THE GOETHALS' OWN" IN ACTIOM 
Attacking a stronghold of the Culebra Slide with a regiment of men and a battery of machines 

the ancient dread of a paternalistic government. 

Early in Col. Goethals' regime the great depart- 
ment of engineering and construction was split into 
three subdivisions, namely, 

The Atlantic Division, comprising the canal from 



170 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



deep water in the Caribbean to, and including, the 
Gatun locks and dam. In all this covered about 
seven miles of the canal only, but one of its most 
difficult and interesting features. 

The Central Division, including Gatun Lake and 
the Culebra Cut to the Pedro Miguel lock, or about 
32 miles of canal. 

The Pacific Division, including the Pedro Miguel 
and Mirafiores locks, and the canal from the foot 
of the latter to deep water in the Pacific. 

Under this classification will be described the 
construction work on the canal, work which at the 
time of the author's visit was clear to view, im- 
pressive in its magnitude, appalling in the multi- 
plicity of its details, and picturesque in method and 
accomplishment. With the turning of the water 
into the channel all this will be hidden as the works 
of a watch disappear when the case is snapped shut. 
The canal, they say, and rightly, will be Goethals' 
monument — though there are those who think it a 
monument to Col. Gorgas, while quite a few hold 



that the fame of Theodore Roosevelt might be 
further exalted by this work. But whomsoever it 
may commemorate as a monument it was even 
more impressive in the building than in the com- 
pleted form. 

One Sunday late in my stay on the Isthmus I 
was going over the line from Ancon to Culebra. 
As we approached the little tunnel near Mirafiores 
I noticed an unusual stir for the day, for on the 
Canal Zone the day of rest is almost religiously 
observed. Men were swarming along the line, 
moving tracks, driving spikes, ramming ballast. I 
asked one in authority what it all meant. "Oh", 
said he, "we're going to begin running dirt trains 
through the tunnel, and that necessitates double 
tracking some of the line. The Colonel said it 
must be done by tomorrow and we've got more 
than 1000 men on the job this quiet Sunday. The 
Colonel's orders you know". 

Yes, I knew, and everybody on the Canal Zone 
knows. 




Photo by b H LUioU 



BAS OBISPO END OF CULEBRA CUT 



CHAPTER X 



GATUN DAM AND LOCKS 



PiaKLIM^iM^NTERING the Panama Canal 
~ from the Atlantic, one finds 

the beginning of that sec- 
tion called by the engineers 

|M L4a_ — A \i^^K^ the Atlantic Division, four 

If ''"^ '^va^B^M ^"^^^ °'^^ ^t sea in Limon 

Bay, a shallow arm of the 
Caribbean on the shore of 
which are Colon and the 
American town of Cristo- 
bal. From its beginning, 
marked only by the outer- 
most of a double line of buoys, the canal extends 
almost due south seven miles to the lowest of the 




Gatun Locks. Of this distance four miles is a channel 
dredged out of the bottom of Limon Bay and the 
bottom width of the canal from its beginning to the 
locks is 500 feet. Its depth on this division will be 41 
feet at mean tide. For the protection of vessels en- 
tering the canal at the Atlantic end, or lying in Colon 
harbor, a great breakwater 10,500 feet, or a few 
feet less than two miles long, made of huge masses 
of rock blasted along the line of the Canal, or 
especially quarried at Porto Bello, extends from 
Toro Point to Colon light. In all it will contain 
2,840,000 cubic yards of rock and its estimated 
cost is $5,500,000. 

In the original plans for the harbor of Cristobal 




ENTRANCE TO GATUN LOCKS 
The rafts in the foreground carry pipes through which suction dredges discharge material removed 

171 



172 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




I. colon: these pictures in order form a panorama of the colon water front 



a second breakwater was proposed to extend at an 
angle to the guard one, but the success of the former 
in breaking the force of the seas that are raised by 
the fierce northers that blow between October and 
January has been so great that this may never be 
needed. Its need is further obviated by the 
construction of the great mole of stone and concrete 
which juts out from the Cristobal shore for 3500 



feet at right angles to the Canal. From this mole 
five massive piers will extend into the harbor, jutting 
out like fingers on a hand, each 1000 feet long and 
with the space between them 300 feet wide so that 
two 1000 foot ships may dock at one time in each 
slip. The new port of Cristobal starts out with 
pier facilities which New York had not prepared for 
the reception of great ships like the "Vaterland" 



!\«. 





«E---^, 



III. colon: PANAMA RAILROAD AND ROYAL MAIL DOCKS 



ATLANTIC BEGINNING OF THE CANAL 



T73 




II. colon: part of the residential district on the water front 



and the "Aquitania" at the time of their 
launching. 

From the shore of the bay to the first Gatun lock 
is a little less than four miles. The French dug a 
canal penetrating this section, a canal which forms 
today part of our harbor and which has been used 
to some extent for the transportation of material for 
the Gatun dam. Our engineers however abandoned 



it as part of our permanent line, and it is rapidly 
filling up or being over-grown by vegetation. At 
its best it was about fifteen miles long, 15 feet deep 
as far as Gatun, and 7 feet deep thence to the now 
vanished village of Bohio. 

The Canal from the seaboard to the Gatun locks 
was straightaway excavation, through land little 
higher than the water, with tidewater following so 




IV. COLON . THE DE LESSEPS HOUSE IN THE DISTANCE SHOWS LOCATION OF NEW DOCKS 



174 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



that the work could be done by floating dredges. 
No novel problems were presented to the engineer, 
nor are interesting achievements displayed to the 
tourist until the great dam itself is reached. 

The simplest way of reaching the Gatun dam is 
of course by train from Colon, a ride of perhaps 
twenty minutes. But a more spectacular one is by 
launch, either up the Canal, or around by the 
Chagres River from its mouth. The latter is a 
difficult trip however and seldom essayed. One 
advantage of taking the Canal is that it gives a 
much clearer idea of the construction of the dam 
than can be derived by approaching it by railroad. 
The first signihcant fact forced upon your attention 
in thus coming upon the dam is that it does not 
look like a dam at all, but rather like a long and 
gently sloping hill pierced at one point by a sort 
of masonry gate which upon closer approach reveals 
itself as a system of mighty locks. 

Not very long ago there was a wide-spread appre- 
hension in the United States, bred of a rather shallow 
newspaper criticism very widely republished, that 
the Gatun dam would prove inadequate to the pres- 
sure of the waters impounded behind it and might 




Plwto by Underwood <S: Underwood 

SOUTH APPROACH WALL, GATUN LOCKS 

collapse, or "topple over". If all who have been 
impressed by that gruesome prophecy could see the 
dam itself their apprehensions would be speedily 
quieted. One might as well talk of toppling over 
the pyramids, or Murray Hill, New York (not the 
structures on it, but the hill itself) or the Treasury 
Building at Washington. Elevations, natural or 
artificial, the base of which is eight to ten times 
their height, cannot topple over while the force of 
gravity continues to operate. Now the height of 




GATUN LOCKS OPENING INTO THE LAKE 
The skeleton structure on the left is the frame-work of the emergency dam which swings directly athwart the lock 



THE PLAN OF THE GATUN DAM 



175 



Gatun dam is 105 feet, and from its crest the filling 
of clay and rock slopes gently away on the landward 
side for nearly half a mile. There are more abrujjt 
eminences on many of our rolling prairies. The 
face on the lake side descends somewhat more 
abruptly, but is still several hundred feet long before 
its slope ends with the bed of the lake. This face 
is covered with broken stone down to the "toe" — 
as they call the walls of rough rock between which 
the dirt dam was built. 

The method of building the dam was simple 
enough even though it sounds complicated in the 
telling. When Congress acquiesced in the minority 
report of the Board of International Engineers, ap- 
proved by the President and recommending a lock 
type canal, it meant that instead of simply digging 
a ditch across the Isthmus we would create a great 
artificial lake 85 feet above sea level, confined by 
dams at either ends, with locks and two short canals 
to give communication with the oceans. To create 
this lake it was determined to impound the waters 
of the Chagres, and a site near the village of Gatun, 
through which the old French canal passed, was 
selected for this purpose. Conditions of topography 
of course determined this site. The Chagres valley 
here is 7,920 feet wide, but the determining fact was 
that about the center of the valley was a hill of 






Fhoto by Thompson 



GATUN LAKE SEEN FROM THE DAM 



Co-pyTigln. ViW.hy Mnnn &Co- Inc. Frnm Scientific American 

bird's eye view of gatun dam 
'In the foreground the locks, only two of the three steps being fully- 
shown. In the middle distance the spillway, through which sur- 
plus water flows into the Chagres and old French Canal 

rock which afforded solid foundation for a concrete 

dam for the spillway. Geol- 
ogists assert that at one 
time the floor of the vallej' 
was 300 feet higher than now, 
and that in the ages the 
Chagres River cut away the 
shallow gorges on either side 
of the rocky hill. These, it 
was determined, could read- 
ily be obstructed by a broad 
earth dam of the type deter- 
mined upon, but for the spill- 
way with its powerhouse and 
flood gates a rock foundation 
was essential and this was 
furnished by the island. . 

The first step in the con- 
struction of the dam w'as to 
dam the Chagres then flow- 
ing through its old channel 
near the site chosen for the 



176 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 





l^hoto bt/ LiLdtrauod tS: Underwood 



CONSTRUCTION WORK ON GATDN DAM 



was piled upon it, 
compressing it and 
squeezing out the re- 
maining moisture. As 
this surface became 
durable the railroad 
tracks were shifted to 
it, and when I visited 
the dam in 19 13 the 
made land of the dam 
was undistinguishable 
from the natural 
ground surrounding 
it. Over it scores of 
locomotives were 
speeding, dragging 
ponderous trains 
heavy laden with 
"spoil" from the Cu- 
lebra Cut. From the 
crest on the one hand 
the dam sloped away 
in a gentle declivity 
nearly half a mile 
long to the original 

spillway, and through the old French canal. This was jungle on the one side, and a lesser distance on the 

accomplished by building parallel walls, or "toes" of other, to the waters of the Gatun Lake then less than 

broken stone and filling the space between with half fihed. When the main body of the dam had 

fluid mud pumped 

from the old channel 

of the stream. A new 

channel of course was 

provided called the 

"west diversion". 

The toes are about a 

quarter of a mile 

apart and rise about 

30 feet high. They 

were built by the cus- 
tomary devices of 

building trestles on 

which dump trains 

bearing the material 

were run. After the 

core of fluid silt 

pumped in between 

the walls had begun 

Photo by Underwood <& Underuood 

to harden, dry earth pumping mud into the core of gatun dam 



The space between two rock walls has been filled with mud, which having hardened, supports dirt trains 
bringing spoil from Culebra Cut to build up the dam to required dimensions 




HOW THE CHAGRES CURRENT WAS BLOCKED 



177 




been completed and the 
spillway was ready to 
carry off the waters of 
the Chagres then flow- 
ing through the "west 
diversion" the task of 
damming the latter 
was begun. This was 
the first effort to stem 
the current of the Cha- 
gres, the river dreaded 
for so many reasons, and 
the description by Lieutenant 
Colonel William L. Sibert, the 
engineer in charge of this division, 
will be of interest: 

"The elevation of the spillway 
channel is 10 feet above sea level, 
consequently in any attempt to 
stop the flow of the Chagres and 
force it through this channel, a 
rise of about 14 feet of water had 
to be encountered. The banks and 
bottom of the west diversion were 
soft clay. The plan adopted was 
to drive trestles across this chan- 
nel on the 30-foot contour on 
each face of the dam, and to 
build, by dumping rock directly 
into the stream, two dams at the 



same time, hoping to distribute on 
such dams the head formed during 
construction. An unlimited 
amount of waste rock was avail- 
able for this work. The banks 
of the channels were first made 
secure by dumping rock at the 
end of the trestles. After the 
channel was contracted to some 
extent, a considerable current 
developed; rock dumped from the 
trestles was carried some distance 
down stream, forming a rock 
apron in the bed of the stream 
below the dam. Quite deep holes, 
however, were dug by the water 
below this rock apron. When 
the work on the two dams 
had progressed so that 
a channel about 80 feet 
wide and 6 feet deep 
was left in the center, 
it was found im- 
practicable to make 
any headway. Stone 
dumped from the 
trestles would be 
rolled down stream. 
"T^ The rainy season was 
then about to commence. 



Pholo by Underwood and Underwood 

center: gatun center light; lower corner: emergency gates 



178 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Fiiolu bij Undtrwoua tx unacrwaoa 



SPILLWAY UNDER CONSTRUCTION 
Concrete is dumped directly from the railway into the moulds. Pipes to the power house are shown 



The lower part of the bents of the trestles 
being well supported with rock, it was then de- 
cided to dump a carload or two of crooked 
rails above the trestles in such a way that they 
would form an entanglement and stop the rock, 
thus insuring either the construction of the dam or 
the taking out of the trestle. By this means the 
two dams were finally completed an'd the Chagres 
River successfully diverted." 

To the unprofessional observer the Gatun dam 
is a disappointment as a spectacle. It does not 
look like a dam at all, but merely like a continua- 
tion of one of the hills it connects. But as a matter 
of fact it is the greatest dam in the world — a mile 
and a half long, 105 feet high, half a mile thick at 
its base, 398 feet at the surface of the lake and 100 



feet wide at the top. It is longer and higher than 
the Assouan dam which the British built across the 
Nile though the latter, being all of masonry, is vastly 
the more picturesque. Into the entire work will 
go about 21,000,000 cubic yards of material. 

One day while the Gaturi dam was in the earlier 
stages of its construction in 1908, a newspaper 
correspondent was temporarily detained at Gatun 
while crossing the Isthmus. Idly, to pass the time 
away, he strolled out on the dam to where he saw 
a group of men gathered. He found them dis- 
cussing a small break at the edge of the dam up- 
stream; a break not caused by any pressure of the 
water, for the water had not reached that point, 
but by the weight of the heavy superstructure 
pressing upon the semi-fluid core of the dam which 



THE SPILLWAY— THE NERVE CENTER OF GATUN LAKE 



179 



then had not had sufficient time for drainage and 
drying. The dispatch which the correspondent sent 
north as the result of his casual observation of the 
slide, was seized upon by the advocates of the sea- 
level canal as a text from which to argue the entire 
impracticability of the lake-level project. The 
agitation became so general and so menacing that 
President Roosevelt was impelled to appoint a 
commission of seven engineers of high professional 
standing and technical knowledge of dam building 
to visit the spot and report upon the menace. 
Their verdict was that the Canal engineers had gone 
far beyond the necessary point in making the dam 
ponderous and safe. Secretary of War Taft, who 
happened to be on the Isthmus when the break 
occurred, declared that it was "insignificant when 
one takes into consideration the whole size of the 
dam". 

When the tricky Chagres gets on one of its rainy 
season rages the spillway by which the dam is 
pierced at about its center will be one of the spec- 
tacular points on the Canal line. That river drains 
a basin covering 1,320 square miles, and upon which 



the rains in their season fall with a persistence and 
continuity known in hardly any other corner of the 
earth. The Chagres has been known to rise as 
much as 40 feet in 24 hours, and though even this 
great flood will be measurably lowered by being 
distributed over the 164 square miles in Gatun Lake, 
yet some system of controlling it by outlets and 
flood gates was of course essential to the working 
and the safety of the Canal. The spillway is the 
center of this system, the point at which is the 
machinery by which the surface of Gatun Lake can 
be at all times kept within two feet of its normal 
level, which is 85 feet above the level of the sea. 

Fundamentally the spillway is a channel 1,200 
feet long and 285 feet wide cut through the solid 
rock of the island which at this point bisects the 
now obliterated Chagres Valley. Though cut 
through rock it is smoothly lined and floored with 
cement; closed at its upper end by a dam, shaped 
like the arc of a circle so that, while it bars an opening 
of only 285 feet, its length is 808 feet. For the 
benefit of the unprofessional observer it may be 
noted that by thus curving a dam in the direction 




PARTLY COMPLETED SPILLWAY, 1913 
The river was low when this picture was taken. At high water it will flow over the completed structure shown at the right 



i8o 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



of the force em- 
ployed against it, 
its resisting power 
is increased. It 
resists force ex- 
erted horizontally 
precisely as an 
arch resists force, 
or weight, exerted 
from above. The 
dam at the spill- 
way extends sol- 
idly across the 
opening to a 
height of 69 feet. 
But this is 16 
feet below the 
normal level of 
the Lake. From 
the top of the 
solid dam rise 
thirteen concrete 

piers to a height as planned, of 115 feet above 
sea level, that is the piers will rise 46 feet above 
the top of the dam. Between each two of these 
piers will be mounted regulating gates of steel 
sheathing, made water tight and movable up or 




Photo bi/ Underwood & Underwoou 



THE GIANT PENSTOCKS OF THE SPILLWAY 



down as the state 
of the Chagres 
level requires a 
free or a restrict- 
ed passage for 
the water. Nor 
will those oper- 
ating the gates 
await the visual 
appearance of the 
flood before 
throwing wide 
the passage for its 
onrush. At divers 
points along the 
Chagres, and 
throughout its 
water shed are 
little stations 
whence observers 
telephone at reg- 
ular intervals 
throughout the day to the office at the spillway 
the result of their observations of the river's height. 
With these figures at hand the controller of the gates 
can foresee the coming of a flood hours before it 
begins to beat against the gates. 




THE SPILLWAY AT HIGH WATER 
A comparison with the picture on page 179 will show the varying stages of the river 



THE USES OF THE ELECTRIC POWER OF GATUN 



i8i 




Photo hy Underwood & Underwood 



LOCK GATES APPROACHING COMPLETION 



The spillway further serves a useful and an 
essential purpose in that it harnesses the water 
power of the useful Chagres, and turns it into 
electric power to open and shut the colossal gates of 
the various locks; to propel the electric locomotives 
that tow the great ships through the concrete 
channels; to light the canal towns and villages, and 
the lighthouses on the line; to run the great cranes 
at Balboa and Cristobal; to run the machinery in 
the shops at Balboa; to furnish motive power, if 
so determined for the Panama Railroad, and to 
swing the great guns at Toro Point and Naos 
Island until their muzzles bear with calm yet fright- 
ful menace upon any enemy approaching from 
either the Caribbean or the Pacific. There will be 
power for all these functions, and power too to 
light Panama and Colon, to run the Panama tram- 
way and perform other useful functions if the present 



grip of private Panama monopoly upon these public 
services shall be relinquished. The water drops 
75 feet through huge penstocks to great turbines 
in the spillway hydro-electric station with a capacity 
of 6,000 kilowatts, but the amount of water power 
is sufficient for double that current, and turbines 
to supply the addition can be installed whenever 
the need for the power develops. 

The Gatun locks are built at the very eastern 
end of Gatun dam, at the point where it joins the 
mainland bordering the Chagres valley. Of their 
superficial dimensions I have already spoken, and 
have described their appearance as seen from the 
deck of a ship in passage. It will be hard however 
for one who has not stood on the concrete floor 
of one of these massive chambers and looked upward 
to their crest, or walking out on one of the massive 
gates peered down into their depths, to appreciate 



l82 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




THE WATER KNOCKING AT GATUN GATES 

their full size. It is all very well to say that the 
"Imperator," the greatest of ships now afloat, cotild 
find room in one of these locks with five feet 
at each side, and fifty feet at each end to spare, 
but then few of us have seen the Imperator and 
nobody has seen her in the lock. It is all very 
well to figure that a six story house would not rise 
above the cop- 
ing of one of 
these locks, but 
imagination 
does not visu- 
alize the house 
there, and 
moreover there 
are stories and 
stories in 
height. Yet as 
one stood on 
the floor of one 
•of these great 
monolithic 
tanks as they 
were being 
rushed to com- 
pletion in 191 3, 
and saw loco- 
motives dwarf- 
ed by the pon- 
derous walls 
betwixt which 



they plied, and whole trains of loaded 
dump cars swallowed up in a single 
lock chamber, one got some idea of 
the magnitude of the work. A track 
for a travelling crane extended down 
the center of the chamber and the 
monster rumbled back and forth car- 
rying loads of material to their ap- 
pointed destinations. Across the 
whole width of the Canal below the 
locks stretched cable carriers upheld 
by skeleton devices of steel mounted 
on rails so that the pair of them, 
though separated by 500 feet of 
space, spanned by the sagging cables, 
could be moved in unison. Out on 
the swinging cables ran the loaded 
cars or buckets, filled with concrete and dumped with 
a crash and a roar at the chosen place. Giant mixers 
ground up rock from Porto Bello, sand from Nombre 
de Dios, and cement from divers states of our union 
into a sort of Brobdignagian porridge with which the 
hungry maws of the moulds were ceaselessly fed. Men 
wig-wagged signals with flags across gaping chasms. 




WALL OF GATUN LOCK SHOWING ARCHED CONSTRUCTION 



THE COLOSSAL CONCRETE WORK AT GATUN 



183 




Pbolo by Underwood & Underwood 

TRAVELLING CRANES AT WORK 

Mounted on rails these cranes carry the heaviest burdens. Those 
dehvering concrete to the forms. One crane will cost 

Steam whistles blew shrill warnings and cryptic 
orders. Wheels rumbled. Pulleys creaked. It 
seemed that everything a man could do was being 
done by machine, yet there was an army of men 
directing, correcting and supplementing the me- 
chanical labor. 

Into the locks at Gatun will go 2,000,000 cubic 
yards of concrete if the original 
estimate is adhered to. A statisti- 
cian estimates that it would build 
a wall 8 feet wide and 12 feet high 
and 133 miles long — which would 
just about wall off the state of 
Delaware from the rest of the 
Union. 

The side walls of each of the locks 
are practically monoliths, con- 
structed of concrete poured into 
great steel frames or moulds where 
it hardens into a solid mass. They 
are based in the main on bed rock, 
though it was found on making tests 
that the bed rock was not of suffi- 
cient extent to support the guide 
walls as well, so one of these is 
therefore made cellular to lighten 



its weight, which rests on piles 
of 60 feet long capped and sur- 
rounded with concrete. This 
wall was built by slow stages 
and allowed to stand in order 
that its settlement might be uni- 
form. An examination of the 
picture below will make clear 
the method of constructing the 
lock walls, for in it are shown 
the completed monoliths and a 
steel form half completed with 
men preparing it for the concrete 
therein. Col. Sibert describes 
the details of the work thus: 

' ' The locks proper are founded 
on rock and the heavy masonry 
is completed. This rock founda- 
tion was not of sufificient extent, 
however, at available elevations, 
for supporting the guide walls. 
Under that guide wall extending 
into the lake the underlying rock at the south end 
is about 150 feet below sea level, and the overlying 
material is soft. This wall is cellular in construc- 
tion. It is composed of four longitudinal walls 
about 2 feet thick with cross walls about 17 feet 
apart, all built of reinforced concrete. 

"The natural ground underlying the wall was about 



shown are placed for 
$6o,oco 




Photo by Underwood & Underwood 



BUILDING A MONOLITH 



1 84 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




A CULVERT IN THE LOCK WALL 

8 feet above sea level. On this ground a vi^ide fill 
with a very flat slope was constructed to elevation 
plus 35, and through this piles about 6o feet long, 
4-foot centers, were driven and a heavy reinforced 
concrete slab built around the heads of the piles, 
on which was erected the cellular structure. There 
was a continual slow settlement of this wall as its 
construction progressed. It was brought to a 
height of 6 1 feet above sea level through its entire 
length in order that the settlement might extend 
over the whole base before any part was brought 
to full height. 

"The north guide and flare walls are yet to be 
built. It will be necessary to go to a depth of about 
70 feet below sea level through very soft material 
in order to uncover the rock on which to build the 
flare walls. Under the guide wall itself the rock is 
at a still lower elevatipn, and a pile 
foundation will probably be con- 
structed, the piling going to rock. 
The material in this space was too 
soft to hold up steam shovels, and it 
was decided to do the general exca- 
vation by suction dredges. These 
dredges cut their way into the space 
where the walls in question are to be 
built, making a channel just wide and 
deep enough for their passage. They 
then widened out the cut and deep- 
ened it to 41 feet below sea level. 
An earthen dam was then built 
across the narrow entrance cut, 



shutting off the connection with the sea, and as the 
dredges worked they were lowered. They are now 
floating at an elevation of 2,2 feet below sea level 
and can remove the, material to the depth required. 
After the excavation is completed it is proposed to 
have the dredges excavate a sump 65 feet below 
sea level and lower the water to 50 feet below sea 
level in order to test the stability of the sides of 
the cut. If there is no sliding the pit will be filled 
with water ; the dredges floated out ; the dam across 
the entrance channel replaced and the excavation 
unwatered for the construction of the walls first 
referred to. 

"The masonry of the Gatun locks was largely 
placed by cableways, having a span of 800 feet, 
covering the entire space to be occupied by the 




DIAGRAM OF LOCK-GATE MACHINERY 

locks. The stone and sand for the concrete were 
obtained, respectively, 20 and 40 miles down the 
Caribbean coast, and were brought in barges up the 
old French Canal as closely as possible to the lock 




TOWING LOCOMOTIVE CLIMBING TO UPPER LOCK 



THE MOTIVE POWER OF THE LOCK GATES 



185 



site, and were unloaded by cableways into large 
stock piles near the bank. The material, however, 
was still 3,500 feet away and 60 feet below the 
center of lock construction. This situation caused 
the adoption of a central mixing plant near the 
central portion of the locks, consisting of eight 2- 
yard mixers. An automatic, electric, loop-line rail- 
road, each car carrying the material for a batch of 
'concrete, was installed, passing under the cement 
shed, under the sand and stone piles; and over the 
mixers. The mixed concrete was delivered to the 
cableways requiring it by an electric line, the flat 
cars of which were handled by electric locomotives. 
Steel forms were used in constructing the walls of 
the locks". 

A vital featiure of the locks is, of course, getting 
the water into and out of them, and the method of 
operating the gigantic gates. The former is simple 
enough of explanation, though the modus operandi 
will be entirely concealed when the locks are in 
operation. Through each of the side walls, and 
through the center walls which divide the pairs of 
locks, runs a tunnel 18 feet in diameter. To put 
it more graphically a tunnel large enough to take a 
mogul locomotive of 
the highest type. 
From this main tunnel 
smaller ones branch 
off to the floors of the 
locks that are to be 
served, and these 
smaller chutes are big 
enough for the passage 
of a farmer's wagon 
with a span of horses. 
These smaller chutes 
extend under the floor 
of the lock and con- 
nect with it by valved 
openings, the valves 
being operated by elec- 
tricity. There is no 
pumping of the water. 
Each lock is filled by 
the natural descent of 
the water from the 
lock above or from ^jjj, ^^^^^ 

the lake. By the use By its revolution it thrusts 



of the great culvert in the central wall the water 
can be transferred from a lock on the west side of 
the flight to one on the east, or vice versa. Though 
it hardly seems necessary, every possible device for 
the conservation of the water supply has been pro- 
vided. 

We will suppose a vessel from the Atlantic reaches 
Gatun and begins to climb to the lake above. The 
electric locomotives tow her into the first lock, which 
is filled just to the level of the Canal. The great 
gates close behind her. 

How do they close? What unseen power forces 
those huge gates of steel, shut against the dogged 
resistance of the water? They are 7 feet thick, 65 
feet long and from 47 to 82 feet high. They weigh 
from 390 to 730 tons each. Add to this weight the 
resistance of the water and it becomes evident that 
large power is needed to operate them. At Gatun 
in the passing of a large ship through the locks, it 
will be necessary to lower four fender chains, operate 
six pairs of miter gates and force them to miter, 
open and close eight pairs of rising stem gate valves 
for the main supply culverts, and thirty cylindrical 
valves. In all, no less than 98 motors will be set 




WHEEL SHOWN i.S THE "BULL WHEEL 

or withdraws the arm at the right which moves the gate 



i86 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




THE TANGLED MAZE OF STEEL SKELETONS THAT ARE A LOCK IN THE MAKING 



in motion twice during each lockage of a single 
ship, and this number may be increased to 143, 
dependent upon the previous position of the gates, 
valves and other devices. Down under the surface 
of the lock wall, packed into a little crypt which 
seems barely to afford room for its revolving, is a 
great cogwheel 20 feet in diameter, revolving slowly 
and operating a ponderous steel arm which thrusts 
out or pulls back the gate as desired. The bull 
wheel, they call it, is driven by a 27 horse power 
motor, while a smaller motor of 73'^ horse power 
locks the gates tight after they are once in position. 
Two of these bull wheels, and two each of the 
motors are needed for each pair of gates. 

The ship then is in the lowest lock, one pair of 
gates closed tightly behind her. Another pair con- 
fronts her holding back the water in the lock above, 
which if filled, will be just 283/3 feet above the 
surface of that on which she floats. But the water 
about her is now slowly rising. Another set of 
electric motors concealed in the concrete wall have 
set in motion the valves in the floor of the lock. 



and the water is flowing in from the tunnels, raising 
the ship and at the same time lowering the water in 
the lock above. When the vessel's keel is higher than 
the sill of the lock above the upper gates swing slowly 
back and fold in flat with the wall. The ship is 
now in a chamber 2000 feet long filled to a level. 
The locomotives pull her forward a thousand feet 
or so. Again great gates close behind her. Again 
the water rises slowly about her lifting her with it. 
The first process is repeated and she enters the 
third lock. By the time she has been drawn out 
into the lake and the locomotives have cast her off, 
more than 100 electric motors with a horse power 
ranging from 73/^ to 50 each will have contributed 
to her progress. Altogether over 1000 individual 
motors will be required for the different locks. 
Indeed the whole interior of those massive lock 
walls is penetrated by lighted galleries strung with 
insulated wires bearing a death-dealing current. Men 
will be stationed at the various machinery rooms, 
but the whole line of machinery can be operated 
from a central operating tower on the lock above. 



CHAPTER XI 



GATUN LAKE AND THE CHAGRES RIVER 



HAT section of the Canal, 

which for the convenience of 
engineering records and direc- 
tions is known as tlie Central 
Division, comprises within its 
boundaries two of the great 
spectacular features of the 
Isthmus — Gatun Lake and the 
Culebra Cut. I have already 
described the scenic charac- 
teristics of this lake, but some 

discussion of the part it plays in the economy of the 

Canal will not be out of place. 

In the first place the creation of the lake 
depended on the type of canal to be se- 




lected. A sea-level canal could not exist with the 
lake ; a lock canal could not have been built without 
it. The meanderings of the Chagres, crossing and 
recrossing the only practicable line for the Canal, and 
its passionate outbursts in the rainy season made it 
an impossible obstacle to a sea-level canal, and all the 
plans for a canal of that type contemplated damming 
the stream at some point above Gatun — at Bohio, 
Gamboa or Alhajuela — and diverting its outflow 
into the Pacific. On the other hand the lock canal 
could not be built without some great reservoir of 
water to repeatedly fill its locks, and to supply the 
waterpower whereby to operate them. Hence 
Gatun Lake was essential to the type of canal we 
adopted. 

The lay reader will probably be surprised when 
he hears how carefully the area of the Chagres 
watershed and the average rainfall were studied, 
and the height of the dam and the spillway adjusted 
to make certain a sufficient supply of water for the 




THE CHAGRES, SHOWING OBSERVER S ( \K 
From the swinging car the observer measures the crest of the flood and rapidity of the current 

i87 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




FLUVIOGRAPH AT BOHIO, NOW SUBMERGED 



Panamanian as the Rhine is 
German and there have been 
watches on the Chagres, too, 
when buccaneers and revolu- 
tionists urged their cayucas 
along its tortuous highway. 
It was the highway by which 
the despoilers of Peru carried 
their loot to the Atlantic on 
the way to Spain, and along its 
tide drifted the later argonauts 
who sought the golden fleece 
in California in the days of '49. 
The poet too has sung it, but 
not in words of praise. Listen 
to its most famous lyric from 
the pen of James Henry Gilbert . 



locks. The only locks with which these could be 
compared are those at the "Soo", or outlet of Lake 
Superior. That canal, the busiest one in the world 
for eight months in the year, averaged 39 lockages 
a day during that period on the American side and 
a smaller number through the Canadian locks. The 
water in Gatun Lake will be sufficient for 41 passages, 
if the full length of the locks is used or 58 if only 
the partial length is used, which will be the case 
with steamships of less than 15,000 tons — and in 
ships of this class the bulk of the world's trade is 
conducted. If the limit of 41 lockages seems low, 
it must be remembered that time is quite as much 
a factor in the case as is the water supply. It will 
take an hour and a half to put a ship through the 
I locks. That time therefore technically constitutes 
a "passage". In the 24 hours there would be 36 
passages possible, and under the circumstances that 
would draw most heavily on the lake there will be 
water enough for 41. 

For the creation of this lake our engineers found 
the Chagres River available. It had dug the valley 
in which would be stored the vast volume of water 
■ needed, and the unfailing flow from its broad water- 
\ shed could be relied upon at all seasons — though 
indeed in the rainy season its contribution is some- 
times embarrassingly lavish. 

Every land comes to be judged largely by its 
rivers. Speak of Egypt and you think of the Nile; 
India suggests the Ganges; England the Thames; 
and France the Seine. The Chagres is as truly 



Panama's most famous bard and most cruel critic. 




AUTOMATIC FLUVIOGRAPH ON GATUN LAKE 



THE NATIVE AFFECTION FOR THE CHAGRES 



189 




Fholo by i'ndtrunad it I'ndtrwuijd 



THE VILLAGE OF BOHIO, NOW SUBMERGED 



" Beyond the Chagres River 

Are the paths that lead to death — 
To the fever's deadly breezes, 

To malaria's poisonous breath! 
Beyond the tropic foliage, 

Where the alligator waits. 
Are the mansions of the Devil — 

His original estates. 

"Beyond the Chagres River 

Are the paths fore'er unknown, 
With a spider 'neath each pebble 

A scorpion 'neath each stone. 
'Tis here the boa-constrictor 

His fatal banquet holds, 
And to his slimy bosom 

His hapless guest enfolds! 

"Beyond the Chagres River 

'Tis said — the story's old — 
Are paths that lead to mountains 

Of purest virgin gold; 
But 'tis my firm conviction, 

Whatever tales they tell. 
That beyond the Chagres River 

All paths lead straight to Hell"! 



A much maligned stream is the River Chagres. 
Pioneers, pirates, prospectors and poets have vied 
with each other in applying the vocabulary of con- 
tumely and abuse to it, and the practitioners of 
medicine have attached its name to a peculiarly 
depressing and virulent type of tropical fever. But 
the humble native loves it dearly and his homes, 
either villages of from ten to forty family huts, 
or mere isolated cabins cling to its shores all the 
way from Fort Lorenzo to the head waters far 
beyond the boundary of the Canal Zone. The 
native too has something of an eye for the pic- 
turesque. Always his huts are erected on a bluff 
of from 15 to 40 feet rise from the river, with the 
ground cleared before them to give an unblocked 
view of the stream. Whether by accident or be- 
cause of a real art instinct he is very apt to 
choose a point at a bend in the river with a 
view both up and down the stream. Possibly 
however art had less to do with his choice than 
an instinct of self-defense, for in the days of 
Isthmian turbulence, or for that matter today, the 
rivers were the chief highways and it was well to 



190 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




STEPS LEADING TO FLUVIOGRAPH STATION AT ALHAJUELA 
This is one of the more distant stations, being ten or more miles outside the Canal Zone 



its origin there will 
presently be water 
enough to wash out all 
the stains of blood. In 
1 91 3 the place was one 
of the principal zone 
villages, with large 
machine shops and a 
labor colony exceeding 
1500 in number. All 
vanishes before the 
rising lake, which will 
be here a piile wide. 

The native craft by 
which alone the 
Chagres could be navi- 
gated prior to the crea- 
tion of the lake are 
long, slender canoes 



be on guard for hostile forces coming from either 
direction. 

I saw the upper Chagres in the last days of its 
existence as a swirling stream full of rapids, rushing 
along a narrow channel between banks sometimes 
rising in limestone cliffs 60 feet high and capped 
by dense tropical foliage ascending perhaps as much 
higher into the blue tropical sky. The river was 
at its best and most picturesque as at the opening 
of the dry season we poled our way up from Matachin 
towards its source. Then Matachin was a hamlet 
of canal workers, and a weekly market for the 
natives who brought thither boat loads of oranges, 
bananas, yams and plantains. Sometimes they 
carried stranger cargoes. I heard a commission 
given one native to fetch down a young tiger for 
somebody who wanted to emulate Sarah Bernhardt 
in the choice of pets. Iguanas, the great edible 
lizard of Panama, young deer, and cages of parrots 
or paroquets occasionally appear. But as a market 
Matachin is doomed, for it is to be submerged. 
With it will go an interesting discussion of the 
etymology of its name, one party holding that it 
signifies "dead Chinamen" as being the spot where 
imported Chinese coolies died in throngs of home- 
sickness during the construction of the Panama 
Railroad. But the word also means "butcher" in 
Spanish and some think it commemorates some 
massacre of the early days. However sanguinary 



fashioned usually from the trunks of the espeve tree, 
hollowed out by fire and shaped within and without 
with the indispensable machete. It is said that oc- 
casionally one is hewn from a mahogany log, for the 
native has little idea of the comparative value of the 
different kinds of timber. Mahogany and rosewood 
logs worth thousands of dollars in New York are 
doing humble service in native huts in Panama. 
But the native has a very clear understanding of 
the comparative labor involved in hewing out a 
hardwood log, and the cay- 
ucas are therefore mainly 
of the softer espeve, a com- 
pact wood with but little 
grain which does not 
crack or splinter when 
dragged roughly over the 
rocks of the innumerable 
rapids. The river cayuca 
is about 25 feet along 
with an extreme beam of 




A LIGHT HOUSE IN THE JUNGLE 



THE INDISPENSABLE NATIVE CAYUCA 



191 



["about 2Y2 feet and a draft of 6 to 10 inches. Natu- 
rally it is crank and can tip a white man into the 
stream with sin- 
gular celerity, 

usually righting 
t 

itself and speed- 
ing swiftly away 
with the rushing 
current. But the 
natives tread it 
as confidently as 
though it were a 
scow. For up- 
stream propulsion 
long poles are 
used, there being 
usually two men 
to a boat, though 
one man standing 
in the stern of a 
30-foot loaded ca- 
yuca and thrust- 
ing it merrily up 
stream, through 
rocky rapids and 
swirling whirl- 
pools is no un- 
common sight. 

Our craft was 
longer — 35 feet in 
all, and in the of- 
ficial service of 
the Canal com- 
mission had risen 
to the dignity of a 
coat of green paint 
besides having a 
captain and a 
crew of two men. 
Our captain, 
though but in his 
nineteenth year, 
was a person of 
some dignity, con- 
veying his orders 
to the crew in tones of command, though not arferse 
to joining in the lively badinage with whirli theK' 
greeted passing boatmen, or rallied maidens, \\afehihg 



linen in the streams, upon their slightly concealed 
charms. The corrupt Spanish they spoke made it 




PhQio by VnUcrwood & Underwood 



TII^ 'ilVE<SIDE MARKET AT MATACHIN 



liiV/ 



ietWt 



diffieilf to do more than catch the general import of 
these pkiyful interchanges. Curiously enough the 
pative iieasant has no desire to learn English, and 



192 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



frequently conceals that accomplishment, if he has 
attained it, as though it were a thing of which to be 
ashamed. This attitude is the more perplexing in 
view of the fact that the commission pays more to 
English speaking natives. 

"This boy Manuel", said my host to me in low 
tones, "understands English and can speak it after 
a fashion, but rarely does so. I entrapped him once 
in a brief conversation and said to him, 'Manuel, 
why don't you speak English and get on the roll of 
English speaking employees? You are getting $62.50 
gold a month now; then you'd get $75 at least'. 

"Manuel dropped his English at once. 'No 
quiero aprender a hablar ingles', said he, 'Para 
mi basta el espanol' ". (I don't care. Spanish good 
enough for me.) 

Manuel indeed was the son of the alcalde of his 




RAILROAD BRIDGE OVER THE CHAGRES AT GAMl 
River is at low water. For picture showing it at flood, see p¥ii''i^l 



village, and the alcalde is a person of much power 
and of grandeur proportionate to the number of 
thatched huts in 
his domain. The 
son bore himself as 
one of high lineage 
and his face indeed, 
Caucasian in all 
save color, showed 
that Spanish blood 
predominated over 
the universal ad- 
mixture of negro. 
He saved his 
money, spending 
less than $10 a 
month and invest- 
ing the rest in 
horses. 

From Matachin 
up to Cruces the 
river is compara- 
tively common- 
place, spanned at 
one point by the 
Gamboa bridge up 
at which the voy- 
ager looks reflec- 
tively from below 
as he hears that 

when the spillway is closed arid the lake filled up 
there will be but 15 feet headway above the river's 
crest, where at the moment there is more than 60. 
Higher up are the towers, housing the machinery for 
recording the river's rise, one of them a relic of the 
French regime, while a slender wire spanning the 
stream carries the pendulous car in which observers 
will go out at flood time to measure the height of 
the tide's crest and the speed of the current. A 
stream of many moods is the Chagres, sometimes 
rising 40 feet in 24 hours. Accordingly along its 
anks and those of its principal tributaries are 
viographic stations whence watchers may tele- 

, ofione to the keepers of the flood gates of the dam 
inings of the coming of any sudden freshet, 
the matter of conserving the waters of the 
es, estimating the total capacity of the water- 

gsMdi and in providing for swift forwarding of in- 




A QUIET BEACH ON THE CHAGRES 



KEEPING THE RECORD OF fHE CHAGRES 



193 



formation concerning sudden rises we shall always 
be under great obligations to the French. Their 
hydrographic ob- 




servations and 
records are inval- 
uable, and their 
stations estab- 
lished before we 
assumed control 
are still used, with 
much of their ma- 
chinery. Stations 
are maintained 
far up the valleys 
of the Chagres 
and tributary riv- 
ulets, and all are 
connected with 
the central con- 
trol at Gatun dam by telephone. Some of the sta- 
tions are equipped with automatic machinery which, 
in the event of a rise during the night summons the 
keeper by ringing an alarm bell. The life of the 
keeper of a fiuviograph station, miles perhaps of 
jungle isolating him from the nearest human habita- 
tion, is lonesome enough. Yet its monotony is 
sometimes relieved by lively incident. The irascible 
Chagres, for example, once caught the keeper 
at Alhajuela with a sudden rise, and compelled 
him to camp out a night and day in a tree top 
and see his house, pigs and poultry swept 



POI.IM; IP THE RAPIDS 



away on the rushing tide. There was a fair 
chance that the tree would follow. 

On our way up 
the river to visit 
some of the flu- 
viographs we 
landed at Cruces, 
went a brief space 
into the jungle 
and cleared away 
with machetes the 
tangled vegeta- 
tion until the old 
trail, or Royal 
Road to Panama, 
was laid bare. 
Three to four feet 
wide or there- 
abouts it was, and 
at points rudely paved with cobble stones. The na- 
ture and dimensions of the trail show that it was not 
intended for wheeled carriages, and indeed a native 
vehicle is a rarity on the Isthmus today, except in the 
towns. Time came when with the growing power and 
cruelty of the Spaniards this Camina Reale, or King's 
Highway, was watered with the blood of Indian 
slaves, bearing often their own possessions stolen 
from them by the Spaniard who plied on their bent 
backs his bloody lash. It may have been over this 
trail that Balboa carried, with incredible labor, the 
frames of three ships or caravels, which he after- 




Plwlo by a. H. ElUuU 



CONSTRUCTION WORK ON THE SPILLWAY 



194 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Plww oy Cnacricuuu ^^: l uutr 

"water gates in lock wall ■ - 
. Through these gates the water is admitted to the great conduit in the center wall of the lock 

wards erected and launched in the Pacific. Several 
years ago there were found in the jungle near Cruces 
two heavy anchors, with i 4-foot shafts and weighing 
about 600 pounds which had been carried thus far on 
the way to the Pacific and there dropped and left to 
the kindly burial of the tropical jungle. When 
they were discovered a too loyal graduate of our 
military academy at 
West Point in charge 
of some engineering 
work on the Isthmus, 
thought it would be a 
fine thing to send them 
up there and have 
them preserved on the 
parade ground of the 
academy. Without 
announcing his inten- 
tion he had them re- 
moved from the spot 
where they were found 
and had taken them 
as far as the steamship 
wharf at Colon when 
Col. Goethals — who 
has a habit of hearing 
of things that are not 



announced — quietly interfered. 
The anchors were removed to 
some safe spot and in due time 
will form part of the historic 
decorations of the new city of 
Balboa. 

Doubtless by the standards of 
these days the wealth that was 
carried back and forth along the 
Royal Road by men crushed low 
like termite ants beneath their 
heavy burdens, was not great. 
Yet one gets some idea of the 
volume of the trade from Ban- 
croft's statement that in the year 
1624, just four years after the 
landing of the Majrfiower, goods 
to the amount of 1,446,346 pesos 
d'oro ■ (practically an equal num- 
ber of dollars), were registered at 
the Casa, or custom house, while 
probably 7J 2 millions of dollars' worth of goods were 
smuggled through. There were great warehouses 
then and a stone church with a neighboring monas- 
tery to which it was customary to send the children 
of the richer people at Nombre de Dios to be kept 
until they had attained their seventh year. For 
that piously named town was almost a plague spot 




Phutj by Underwood tt L ndLrwua 



THE LAKE ABOVE GATUN 



CRUCES IN ITS DAY OF GREATNESS 



195 



and its miasmatic atmosphere was fatal to tender 
infants. 

The paved trail echoes no more with the mule- 
teer's cry, or the clatter of hoofs, nor are there 
wine shops to tempt the traveler, for there are none 
to be tempted. But even in its palmiest days 
Cruces could have been but a dismal spot. Gage, 
a soldier of fortune and an itinerant preacher, visited 
the village in 1638 and left us this record: 

"Before ten of the clock we got to Venta de 
Cruces where 
lived none but 
mulattoes and 
blackmores 
who belong un- 
to the flat 
boates that 
merchandize 
to Portobel. 
There I had 
much good en- 
tertainment by 
the people 
who desired me 
to preach unto 
them the next 
Sabbath day 
and gave me 
twenty crownes 
for my sermon 
and procession. 
After five days 
of my abode 
there, the boats 
set out, which 
were much 
stopped in their 
passage down 

the river, for in some places we found the water 
very low, so that the boats ran upon the gravel; 
from whence with poles and the strength of the 
blackmores they were to be lifted off again". 

After the lapse of almost four centuries we found 
the shallows still there and the blackmores — or their 
descendants — ready to carry our boat past their 
fall. But the people who paid the early traveler 
twenty crowns for a sermon had vanished as irre- 
vocably as the city's public edifices, and no descend- 



ants of like piety remain. Morgan's fierce raiders 
swept through the village in 1670, and its downfall 
may have begun then, for the stout Protestantism 
of the buccaneers manifested itself in burning 
Catholic churches and monasteries in intervals of the 
less pious, but more pleasing, occupation of robbing 
the Spaniards or torturing them to extort confes- 
sions of the hiding places of their wealth. 

Sir Henry Morgan, however, was not the only 
famous man of battles to pass through Cruces. In 




HOW THEY GATHER AT THE RIVER 



1852 a very quiet young captain in the army of the 
United States, one Ulysses S. Grant, was there in 
command of a company of the Fourth Regiment of 
Infantry, U. S. A., proceeding from New York to 
San Francisco. Cholera broke out among the men 
and the loss while on the Isthmus was heavy. At 
Cruces the men were detained for days, the roster 
of the sick growing daily, while rascally contractors 
who had agreed to furnish mules to the army sold 
them at higher prices to private parties eager to 



196 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




WASHERWOMEN S SHELTERS BY THE RIVER 
:oj,.. For protection against the burning sun they erect small shanties of palms 

get away from the pest hole. According to the 
surgeon's report the situation was saved by Grant, 
who made a new contract and enforced it — the 
latter being a practice that grew on him in later 
days. 

For a brief space in the days of the gold rush 
to California in 1 848-' 54, Cruces bade fair to regain 
its early importance. Once the half-way place on 
the trail of Spaniards marching to steal gold from 
the Peruvians, and Englishmen following to rob and 
murder the robbers in turn, it became the meeting 
place of prospectors going out to California full of 
hope, and of miners returning, 
some laden with gold but more 
bowed with disappointm^ent. 
Again Cruces became the 
point at which people and 
freights were transferred from 
the river to the trail, or vice 
versa. But another trail 
reached the river's bank at 
Gorgona and this village be- 
came a considerable rival to 
the older and larger place 
higher up stream. Here were 
several rambling wooden 
houses dignified by the name 
of hotels of which no trace re- 
mains today. The whole vil- 
lage, a considerable one in the 



spring of 1913, with a popula-' 
tion of at least 3,000, is to be 
abandoned to the rising tide 
of Gatun Lake, and such por- 
tions of it as escape sub- 
mergence by the water will be 
overwhelmed by the equally 
irresistible jungle. 

Charles T. Bidwell, an Eng- 
lish traveler who crossed the 
Isthmus in 1853 by way of the 
Gorgona route, says of the 
pleasures of a sojourn in that 
town, "The place contained a 
few stores and more drinking 
saloons, most of which were 
kept by the ' enterprising Yan- 
kee'. The Gorgona road to 
Panama was just then open, it being passable only in 
the dry season, and it was estimated that 2,000 per- 
sons had passed through this place on their way to or 
from California. * * * We decided to take the 
Gorgona road and arranged to have saddle mules 
ready in the morning to convey us to Panama for 
$20 each and to pay i63^ cents a pound additional 
for the conveyance of our luggage". (The distance 
now by rail, which closely follows the old trail is 
16 miles, the fare 80 cents.) "We then went to 
inspect 'a free ball' which had been got up with 
all available splendor in honor of some feast, and 




A FERRY ON THE UPPER CHAGRES 



ANIMAL LIFE ON THE CHAGRES RIVER 



197 



here we had a rare opportunity of seeing assembled 
many shades of color in the human face divine; a 
gorgeous display of native jewelry and not the most 
happy mixture of bright colors in the toilettes of 
those who claimed to be the 'fair sex'. Dancing 
however, and drinking too, seemed to be kept up 
with no lack of spirit and energy to the inharmo- 
nious combination of a fiddle and a drum ; and those 
of the assembly whose tastes led them to quieter 
pursuits had the opportunity of losing at adjoining 
gaming tables the dollars they had so easily and 
quickly extracted from the travelers who had had 
occasion to avail them- 
selves of their services. 
These tables too were 
kept by the enterpris- 
ing Yankee. Having 
seen all this, and 
smoked out our cigars, 
we sought our beds, 
when we found for 
each a shelf or bunk in 
a room which our host 
boasted had at a push 
contained twenty-five 
or thirty people. * * * 
On awakening at day- 
light I found a basin 
and a pail of water set 
out in the open air on 
an old pianoforte, 
which some traveler 
had probably been 
tempted to bring thus 
far on the road". 

The writer goes on 
to say that it took a little over two days to trav- 
erse the distance to Panama, the guides having 
stolen the mules they had rented and made off dur- 
ing the night. 

Above Cruces the banks of the Chagres begin 
to rise in perpendicular limestone cliffs, perhaps 
60 or 70 feet high while from their crests the giant 
tropic trees, the wild fig, the Panama, the Ceiba 
and the sentinel rise yet another one hundred feet 
into the bright blue sky. Amongst them flash back 
and forth bright colored parrots and paroquets, 
kingfishers like those of our northern states, only 



gaudier, and swallows innumerable. Up and down 
the river fly heavy cormorants disturbed by the 
clank of the poles among the stones of the river 
bottom, but not too shy to come within 50 feet or 
so of our boat where, much to my satisfaction, there 
is no gun. White and blue herons stand statuesque 
in the shallows with now and then an aigret. Of 
life other than feathered one sees but little here. 
A few fish leaped, but though the river was crystal- 
line and my guide assured me it was full of fish I 
saw none lurking in either deeps or shallows. Yet 
he must have been right for the natives make much 




Plwto by W. r. BcycT 



THE MUCH PRIZED IGUANA 



This lizard, whicli attains a length of five feet, is esteemed a delicacy in Panama 

of fish as an article of diet, catching them chiefly 
by night lines or the unsportsmanlike practice of 
dynamiting the stream, which has been prohibited 
by the Panama authorities, although the prohibi- 
tion is but little enforced. 

Now and then an alligator slips lazily from the 
shore into the stream but they are not as plentiful 
here as in the tidal waters of the lower river. Oc- 
casionally, too, a shrill cry from one of our boat- 
men, taken up by the other two at once, turns 
attention to the underbrush on the bank, where the 
ungainly form of an iguana is seen scuttling for 



igS 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




CEUCES — A LITTLE TOWN WITH A LONG HISTORY 

safety. Ugliest of beasts is the iguana, a greenish, 
bulbous, pop-eyed crocodile, he serves as the best 
possible model for a dragon to be slain by some 
St. George. The Gila monster of Arizona is a 
veritable Venus of reptiles in comparison to him, 
and the devil fish could give him no lessons in re- 
pulsiveness. Yet the Panamanian loves him dearly 
as a dish. Let one scurry across the road, or, 
dropping from a bough, walk on the surface of a 
river — as they literally do — and every dark-skinned 
native in sight will set up such a shout as we may 
fancy rose from oldtime revellers when the boar's 
head was brought in for the Yuletide feast. Not 
more does the Mississippi dar- 
key love his possum an' sweet 
'taters, the Chinaman his 
bird's nest soup and water- 
melon seeds, the Frenchman 
his absinthe or the German 
his beer than does the Pan- 
amanian his iguana. 

In a mild way the Chagres 
may lay claim to being a 
scenic stream, and perhaps in 
future days when the excel- 
lence of its climate in the win- 
ter becomes known in our 
United States, and the back 
waters of the lake have made 
its upper reaches navigable, 
excursion launches may ply 
above Cruces and almost to 
Alhajuela. Near the latter 



point is a spot which should 
become a shrine for Progres- 
sive Republican pilgrims. A 
low cliff of white limestone, 
swept clear of vegetation and 
polished by the river at high 
water describes an arc of a 
circle hollowed out by the 
swift river which rushes under- 
neath. Springs on the bluff 
above have sent out little 
rivulets which trickling down 
the face of the stone have 
scarred it with parallel verti- 
cal grooves a foot or two apart. 
Seen from the further side of the stream it bears a 
startling likeness to a huge human upper jaw with 
glistening teeth. With a fine sense of the fitness of 
things the river men have named it "Boca del 
Roosevelt " — Roosevelt's mouth. 

Some of the fiuviograph stations are located far 
beyond the limits of the Canal Zone, but by the 
terms of the treaty with the Republic of Panama 
the Canal Commission has over such headwaters 
and reaches of the Chagres such jurisdiction as 
may be necessary for the protection and regulation 
of Gatun Lake. We went to one of these stations 
some 20 miles of poling up the Chagres beyond 




A NATIVE CHARCOAL BURNER 



A TYPICAL FOREIGN LABORER ON THE ZONE 



199 



Alhajuela. The keeper was a native of the Canary 

Islands who had mastered English sufficiently to 

make his reports over the 'phone. His wife, who 

greeted us in starched cotton with a pink hair 

ribbon, pink shoes and a wealth of silver ornaments, 

was a native, dark of complexion as a Jamaica 

negress, but her sister who was there on a visit was 

as white as a Caucasian. Doctors on the Zone say 

that these curious 

variations in type 

in the same 

family are so 

common that 

they can never 

foretell within 

several shades, 

the complexion of 

a baby about to 

be born. 

The keeper of 
i this station was 
paid $65.50 
monthly and the 
Commission sup- 
plied his house, 
which was of the 
native type and 
cost about I85. 
Though many 
children, picka- 
ninnies, little 
Canaries or what- 
ever clustered 
about his door, 
his living expenses 
were practically 
nothing. Expense 

for clothing began only when the youngsters had 
reached ii or 12 years of age and thereafter was 
almost negligible — as indeed were the clothes. 
The river furnished fish, the jungle iguanas, wild 
pigs and birds ; the little garden patch yams, bananas, 
mangoes and other fruits. He was far removed 
from the temptations of Matachin, or other riotous 
market places and he saved practically all of his 
pay. His ambition was to get enough to return 
to his native isles, buy a wine-shop and settle down 
to a leisurely old age — though no occupation could 




much outdo for laziness the task of watching for 
the rising of the Chagres in the dry season. 1 

Returning from the upper waters of the Chagres 
one reaches Gatun Lake at Gamboa where the raili- 
way bridge crosses on seven stone piers. A little 
above is a fiuviograph station fitted with a wir^ 
cable extending across the stream and carrying a 
car from which an observer may take measurements 

of the crest of 
any flood. Indeed 
the river is 
watched and 
measured to its 
very sources. It 
long ago proved 
itself unfit for 
trust, and one 
who has seen it 
in flood time, 40 
feet higher than 
normal, bearing 
on its angry, 
tawny bosom 
houses, great 
trees, cayucas 
stolen from their 
owners, and dead 
animals, sweep- 
ing away bluffs 
at bends and 
rolling great 
boulders along its 
banks, will readi- 
ly understand 
why the builders 
of the Canal sta- 
tioned scouts and 
spies throughout the Chagres territory to send 
ample and early warning of its coming wrath. 

Leaving the Chagres, turning into Gatun Lake 
and directing our course away from the dam and 
toward the Pacific end of the Canal, we traversed a 
broad and placid body of water interspersed with 
densely wooded islands, which very soon narrows to 
the normal width of the Canal. In midsummer, 
19 1 3, when the author conducted his inspection, a 
broad dyke at Bas Obispo cut off Gatun Lake and 
its waters from the Canal trench, then dry, which 



THE NATIVES AFTERNOON TEA 



20O 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 





PIERS OF THE ABANDONED PANAMA RAILWAY 



here extends in an almost straight Hne, 300 feet 
wide, through steadily rising banks to the conti- 
nental divide at Culebra. The railroad then crossed 
upon this dyke to the western side of the Canal and 
passed through several construction towns and 
villages, abandoned later when the Canal was filled 
and the railroad moved to the other side. Tourists 
with an eye for the spectacular used to stand on 
this dyke and speculate upon the thrilling sight 
when a huge blast of dynamite should rend the 
barrier, and in a mighty wave the waters of Gatun 
Lake should rush down the broad channel betwixt 



the eternal hills to make at last the long desired 
waterway from Orient to Occident. But unhappily 
Col. Goethals and his associates unsentimentally 
put the picturesque aside for the practical. No 
dynamite blast, no surging charge of waters through 
the cut, entered into their program. Instead with 
mighty siphons the water was to be lifted over 
the barrier and poured into the Canal for days 
until the two bodies of water were nearly at a 
level. Then by the prosaic use of floating dredges 
the dyke would be removed and the Canal opened 
from Gatun Locks to the locks at Pedro Miguel. 



CHAPTER XII 



THE CULEBRA CUT. 




;ECHNICALLY what is known 
as the Culebra Cut extends from 
Bas Obispo to the locks at Pedro 
Miguel, a distance of nine miles. 
To the general public under- 
standing, however, the term ap- 
plies only to the point of greatest 
excavation between Gold Hill 
and Contractor's Hill. But at 
Bas Obispo the walls of the Canal 
for the first time rise above the 
water level of Gatun Lake. At that point the cut- 
ting begins, the walls rising higher and 
higher, the Canal pressing stubb 
onward at a dead level, until tl 
supreme height of the conti- 
nental divide is attained at 
Gold Hill. Thenceforward 
on the line toward Pan- 
ama City the hills grow 
lower until at the en- 
trance to the locks at 
Pedro Miguel the banks 
sink practically to the 
water level. Out of this 
nine mile stretch there 
had been taken up to Jan 
uary I, 1913, just 88,531,237 
cubic yards of material and 
it was then estimated tl 
there then remained to be excavated 
5,351,419 cubic yards more. But the 
later estimate was destined to be 




the very existence and practicability of the Canal, 
though the engineers knew that they began even 
with the superficial excavating done by the French, 
and had therefore made allowance for them in their 
estimates. Not sufficient allowance however was 
made, and as month after month brought tidings 
of new slides, with terrifying details of such inci- 
dents as whole forests moving, vast cracks opening 
in the earth, large buildings in imminent danger of 
being swept into the Cut, the bottom of the Canal 
mysteriously rising ten to fifteen feet in the air, 
while smoke oozed from the pores of the adjacent 
earth — when such direful reports filled the 
newspapers the public became ner- 
vous, almost abandoning hope of 
le success of the great enter- 
prise. 

This attitude of appre- 



largely increased for, after the date at which it was 
made, the number and extent of "slides" in the 
deepest part of the cut increased to staggering 
proportions. Col. D. D. Gaillard, Member of the 
Commission and Division Engineer in charge of the 
Culebra Cut, estimated in 1912 that in all 115,000,- 
000 cubic yards would have to be removed. 

To the general public the slides seemed to menace 

201 



hension on the part of 
the public is scarcely 
surprising. If the Cap- 
itol Park at Washing- 
ton, with the National 
Capitol cresting it, 
should suddenly begin to 
move down into Penn- 
sylvania Avenue at the 
rate of about three feet a 
day the authorities of the 
Y would naturally feel some 
degree of annoyance. And if the 
AvoRKiNG ON THREE LEVELS smootli and Icvel asphalt of that 

historic thoroughfare should, over 
night, rise up into the air 18 feet in spots those 
responsible for traffic might not unreasonably be 
somewhat worried. 

Such a phenomenon would not be so startling in 
mere magnitude as the slides which added so greatly 
to the work of the engineers on the Canal, and m^de 
tourists, wise with the ripe fruits of five days' ob- 
servation, wag their heads knowingly when Col. 



202 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




THE ORIGINAL CULEBRA SLIDE 
A Y. M. C. A. club had to be moved to escape this shde which in 1913 was still moving 



Goethals calmly repeated his assertion that the water 
would be turned in by August. The Colonel, how- 
ever, had not withdrawn or even modified this 
prophecy so late as June 10, 191 3. Despite the 
almost daily news of increased activity of the slides 
he clung with tenacity to his purpose of putting a 
ship through in October. 

If these slides were an entirely new and unex- 
pected development for which no allowance of either 
time or money had been made in the estimates of 
the Canal builders they would of course justify the 
apprehension they have awakened in the non-pro- 
fessional mind. But the slides were in fact antici- 
pated. The first slide recorded during our work 
on the Isthmus was in 1905; the others have only 
been bigger, and have been bigger only because the 
Canal being dug deeper has weakened the bases of 
even bigger hills along the banks. All the same, 
the proportions of the slides are terrifying and the 
chief geologist declared that they would not cease 
until the angle of the Canal bank became so gentle 
that gravity would not puU the crest down. 

The slides are of two sorts. The simpler is a mere 
swift rush of all the loose surface dirt, sand, gravel 
and stone down the surface of the bank. These 
gravity slides, mere dirt avalanches, though trouble- 



some, present no new problems. To stop them it is 
necessary only to carry the crest of the bank further 
back so that the angle will be less steep. But the 
great, troublesome slides are those caused by the 
pressure of the hill-top on its undermined and weak- 
ened base. These originate at the top of the hill, 
making their presence known by gaping fissrues 
opening in the earth and extending in lines roughly 
parallel to the Canal. Once started the whole mass, 
acres in extent, moves slowly toward the cavity of 
the Canal, three feet a day being its swiftest recorded 
progress. At Culebra the slides compelled the mov- 
ing of a large part of the town away from the edge of 
the Cut, lest it be swept into the gorge. The Cule- 
bra Y. M. C. A. clubhouse, the largest on the Zone 
had to be torn down to escape this peril. 

As the slide moves slowly downward, its colossal 
weight applied at points where nature had made no 
provision for it, forces the earth upward at the 
point where it can offer the least resistance, namely 
the bed of the Canal. Sometimes this upheaval, so 
mysterious to the non-technical mind, attains a 
height of eighteen feet. Again, the friction of this 
huge mass of stone and gravel creates heat, which 
turns into steam the rills of water that everywhere 



THE GREAT PROBLEM OF THE SLIDES 



203 



percolates through the soil. The upheaval of the 
Canal bed, and the occasional outpourings of steam 
have led at times to exaggerated and wholly un- 
founded reports in the newspapers of volcanic action 
being one of the new problems with which the Canal 
builders had to grapple. 

The story told about the extent of the slides is 
sufficiently alarming, but the calmness with which 
Col. Goethals and his lieutenants meet the situation 
is reassuring. According to the official report there 
were twenty-six slides and breaks in Culebra Cut to 
January -i, 1913 with a total area of 225 acres. 
Since that date many others have occured. It is 
estimated that because of slides between 21,000,000 
and 22,000,000 cubic yards of material in excess of 
the original estimate will have been taken out of 
the Cut before completion. This is just about one- 
fifth of the total amount of excavation, dry and 
wet, estimated originally for the whole Canal. But 
the attitude of the engineers toward this addition 
to their labors was merely one of calm acceptance of 
the inevitable and a dogged determination to get 
the stttff out of the way. The slides were an ob- 
stacle; so was the whole isthmus for that matter. 



But all that was necessary was to keep the shovels " 
working and the slides would be removed and the 
isthmus pierced. 

To my mind one of the finest evidences of the 
spirit animating the Canal force was the fashion in 
which this problem of the slides has been approached. 
It was at first disappointing, almost demoralizing, 
to find over night the work of weeks undone and the 
day when "finis" could be written to the volume 
put far over into the future. But the only effect 
was a tighter grip on the pick and the shovel, a 
new determination to force through the Canal. 
Culebra was approached as Grant approached Vicks- 
burg. To reduce it and to open the Canal to traffic, 
as Grant opened the Mississippi to the steamboats 
of the nation, took more time than was at first ex- 
pected, but it had to be done. The dirt could not 
always slide in faster than it could be carted out, 
for in time there would be no dirt left to slide. And 
so, imdismayed and intent upon success, the whole 
force from Col. Goethals to the youngest engineer 
moved on Culebra and the doom of that stubborn 
block to progress was sealed. 

To the unscientific mind the slides are terrifying 




SLIDE ON WEST BANK OF THE CANAL NEAR CULEBRA 
Picture shows about 1,000.000 cubic yards of material moving toward the cut at about three yards a day 



204 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




ATTACKING THE CUCARACHA SLIDE 

This slide has filled the Cut from side to side. A partial Cut has been dug through its center and the shovels are seen working on 

either side. The tracks are moved nightly as the material is removed. 



in their magnitude and in the evidence they give 
of irresistible force. Man can no more check their 
advance than he can that of a glacier which in a way 
they resemble. When I was on the Isthmus the 
great Cucaracha slide was in progress, and had been 
for that matter since 1907. It had a total area of 
47 acres and extended up the east bank of the Canal 
for about 1900 feet from the axis of the Canal. 
When it began its progress was disconcertingly rapid. 
Its base, foot, or "toe" — these anatomical terms in 
engineering are sometimes perplexing — moved across 
the canal bed at the rate of 14 feet a day. All that 
stood in its path was buried, torn to pieces or carried 
along with the resistless glacier of mud. Not content 
with filling the Canal from one side to the other, the 
dirt rose on the further side to a height of about 
30 feet. Not only was the work of months obliter- 
ated, but work was laid out for years to come. In- 
deed in 191 3 they were still digging at the Cucaracha 
slide and the end was not in sight. This slide was 
wholly a gravity slide, caused by a piass of earth 
slipping on the inclined surface of some smooth and 



slippery material like clay on which it rests. The 
nature of the phenomenon is clearly shown by the 
diagram printed on the next page in which the slide 
marked C is of the type just described. 

On the west bank of the Canal occurred a slide 
of the second type caused by the crushing and 
squeezing out of underlying layers of soft material 
by the prodigious pressure of the high banks left 
untouched by the steam shovels. This slide is usually 
accompanied by the uprising of the bed of the Canal 
sometimes to a height of thirty feet. Col. Gaillard 
tells of standing on the bed of the Canal, observing 
the working of a steam shovel, when it gradually 
dawned upon him that he was no longer on the level 
of the shovel. At first he thought that the shovel 
must have been placed upon a bit of boggy land and 
was slowly sinking, but on investigation he discov- 
ered that the point on which he was standing had 
been slowly rising until within five minutes he had 
been lifted six feet without jar and with no sensation 
of motion. A perfectly simple illustration of the 
way in which this elevation of the bed of the Canal 



THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SLIDE 



205 



To cope with 



is caused may be obtained by pressing the hand 
upon a pan of dough. The dough will of course rise 
at the side of the hand. On the "big job" the 
towering hills furnished the pressure, the bed of 
the Canal rose like the dough. In the diagram al- 
ready referred to, the slide to the right marked 
"B" is of the type here described. 
it, the work of 
the shovels 
and dirt trains 
in the Canal 
carrying the 
debris away is 
supplemented 
by others above 
removing the 
crest of the 
slide and thus 
lightening the 

pressure. In the diagram shovels are shown thus 
working on two levels, but I have seen four ter- 
races of the same slide bearing steam shovels and 
rumbling dirt trains hurrying the debris away to 
where it will no longer be a m.enace. 

The Culebra slide possessed a certain remorseless- 
ness which was not manifested by any of the others 




DIAGRAM OF CULEBRA CUT SLIDES 



C. is a slide moving over a slippery surface; the mass B breaks on a line of cleavage and 

crushes the underlying material, forcing it up at A. The steam shovels are 

working to reduce pressure on B 



in quite so picturesque a way. For this slide, with 
apparently human malice, attacked not only the 
work done on the Canal proper, but like a well di- 
rected army moved on the headquarters of its foe. 
Its first manifestation appeared in the form of a 
wide crack in the earth at the crest of the hill on 
which sits the town of Culebra, and directly in 

front of the 
building used 
by Col. Gail- 
lard as divi- 
sion headquar- 
ters for the en- 
gineers. Re- 
treat was the 
only course 
possible in the 
face of such an 
enemy and the 
building was sacrificed. TheCtdebraY. M.C.A. club- 
house too was a point of attack for the remorseless foe. 
It stood on the very crest of the hill, a beautiful build- 
ing on a most beautiful site. The serpent of Culebra 
Cut — the word "culebra" means snake — saw this 
pleasant place of rest and marked it for his ov^n . Noth- 
ing remained but to rally a force of men and tear the 




Courtesy oj ^cientijlc American 

A ROCK SLIDE NEAR EMPIRE 
About 400,000 cubic yards of rock broke away, half filling the cut and opening it to the water of the Obispo Diversion Canal 



206 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




THE AUTHOR AT CULE3RA CUT 

building down for reerection at some other point. 
It was probably the largest and most attractive 
clubhouse on the Zone, but where it once stood 
there was a nearly sheer drop of about sixty feet, 
when first I visited the scene of the slide. Before 
the spot, too, on which the engineering head- 
quarters had stood, there was a patch of lawn 
that had slid some eighty feet down into the Cut. 
With it traveled along a young eucalyptus tree 
waving its leaves defiantly in the face of the enemy 
that was bearing it to irrevocable disaster. Whether 
the Culebra slide had attained its fullest proportions 
in 1913 could not be told with certainty though 
the belief was current that it had. While the crest 
of the hUl had not been fully reached, the top of 
the slide began at the edge of 
^ sort of jog or terrace that 
Extended away from the Cut 
^ome distance on a level before 
the ground began to slope up- 
ward again. Should it extend 
further a very considerable 
and beautifiil part of the town 
would be destroyed, but as it 
Js to be abandoned in any 
event on the completion of the 
panal, this phase of the mat- 
ter does not give the Commis- 
feion much concern. 

A third slide, of lesser pro- 
portions which seriously com- 
plicated the work of the engi- 
neers,- occurred near Empire 



in August, 1912. Here about 400,000 cubic yards 
of rock slipped into the Cut, wrecking cars, destroy- 
ing tracks and machinery and flooding the Canal 
with water from the Obispo diversion. It is not 
generally known that parallel to the Canal at various 
points are dug smaller canals, or big ditches, for the 
purpose of catching and carrying off the heavy an- 
nual rainfall on the canal watershed. These di- 
version ditches cost much in time and labor. One 
was constructed by the French. Another, 53^ miles 
long, known as the Obispo diversion, cost $1,250,000 
and was absolutely essential to the construction of 
the Canal. The rock slide, above referred to, broke 
down the barrier between the Canal cut and the di- 
version ditch and filled the former with an untimely 
flood which it took time to stay and pump out. 

From all parts of the United States citizens inter- 
ested in the progress of the Canal — and only those at 
the work can tell how widespread and patriotic that 
interest is — have sent suggestions for checking these 
slides. Practically all have been impracticable — a 
few only indeed have been thought worthy of being 
put to the test. One that for a time seemed worth 
trying was the suggestion that the wall of the cut 
be plastered with concrete, binding its surface to- 
gether in a solid mass. But upon that being done it 
was demonstrated that the slides were not 
superficial but basic, and concrete face and 
all went down to one general destruction 




CUTTING AT BASE OF CONTRACTORS HILL 

This shows the point at which the Cut is deepest. The actual level of canal bed was not 
reached at the time this photograph was taken 



SOME PECULIAR FEATURES OF THE SLIDES 



207 



fact about the slides is that they do not invari- 
ably slide down throughout their entire course. 
Occasionally they take a turn upward. One tree 
at Cucaracha was pointed out to me which after 
moving majestically down for a space was carried 
upward over a slope for 100 feet, and then having 

passed the crest of 

the hill started 

down again. 



upon time and labor however has been heavy 
enough. Within the 8/5 miles of the Culebra Cut 
fully 200 miles of track have been covered up, de- 
stroyed or necessarily rebuilt because of slides, and 
at one point tracks had to be maintained for nearly 
two years on ground moving from three or four inches 
to several feet a day. Of course this necessitated 
the constant work of repair gangs and track layers. 
When the Canal is completed nearly 22% of the ex- 
cavation will have been of material put in the 
way by slides — a fact which seems to give 
some belated support to the prophecy of the 
early Spanish theologians that God 
would not permit the Isthmus to be 
pierced, but would array new and 
unexpected forces against so 
blasphemous an ef- 
fort to interfere 
with His per- 
fect work. 




A ROCK SLIDE AT LAS CASCADES 

A steam shovel was wholly demolished but its operators escaped. The slides have seldom cost lives 



The slides are by no means wholly in the wet 
season despite the popular impression to that 
effect, though it was in the height of that season that 
the one at Cucaracha began. Yet I have seen a slide 
moving slowly in January when the shovels digging 
fiercely at its base were enshrouded in clouds of 
dust. Curiously enough though tracks have been 
torn up, machinery engulfed and wrung into indis- 
tinguishable tangles of steel, no man was caught 
in any of these avalanches prior to May, 1913, 
when three were thus lost. The tax they have put 



One feature of the slides which would surely have 
awed the pious prophets of the Spanish daj^ and 
which did indeed considerably perplex our more 
prosaic engineers, was the little wisps of smoke that 
arose from the slowly moving soil. That this was 
volcanic few believed, except some newspaper cor- 
respondents in eager search for sens,ations. The 
true explanation that heat generated by friction 
working upon the water in the earth caused the 
steam was all very well and complete as an explana- 
tion of that particular phenomenon. But it left a 



208 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



certain worried feeling in the minds of the men who 
spent their days in putting hundreds of 'plugs of 
dynamite into holes drilled in the rock which the 
scientists declared superheated. Dropping a dyna- 
mite cartridge into a red-hot rock is apt to create 
a menace to the continued life and health of the 
dropper which even the excellent sanitary brigade 
of Col. Gorgas could scarcely control successfully. 
For a time there was a halt in the blasting opera- 
tions and indeed two blasts were fired prematurely 
by this natural heat, but fortunately without loss 
of life. Finally the scheme was devised of thrust- 
ing an iron pipe into the drill hole and leaving it 
there a few minutes. If it was cool to the touch on 
withdrawal all was well; if hot a stream of water 
was kept playing in the hole while the charge was 
inserted and tamped down. 

Dynamite has been man's most useful slave in 

this great work, but like all slaves it now and 

then rises in fierce and murderous revolt. "Though 

during the past three and one-quarter years, in 

work under the writer's charge", 

writes Col. Gaillard, "over 

20,000,000 pounds of 



4^§Sv,««B*-«ij| 




dynamite were used in blasting, but eight men 
have been killed, three of whom failed to go 

to a safe distance and 

were killed by flying 

stones, and 

two by 




Fhoto by Underwood & UTiderwood 

SLICING OFF THE CHIEF ENGINEER'S OFFICE 



Photo hy Underwood & Underwood 

HOW TOURISTS SEE THE CUT 
The picture shows Vincent Astor's party in the observation car 

miscounting the number of shots which had 
gone off in a 'dobe' group, and approaching the 
group before the last shot had exploded". 

Something like 12,000,000 pounds of dynamite a 
year was imported from "the states" to keep the 
job going, over 6,000,000 pounds a year being used 
in Culebra Cut alone, and many an unsuspecting 
passenger danced over the tossing Atlantic waves 
with a cargo beneath him explosive enough to blow 
him to the moon. On the Zone the stuff is handled 
with all the care that long familiarity has shown to 
be necessary, but to the uninitiated it looks careless 
enough. It is however a fact that the accidents 
are continually lessening in number and in fatalities 
caused. The greatest accident of all occurred De- 
cember 12, 1908, when we had been only four years 
on the job. It was at Bas Obispo, and in order to 
throw over the face of a hill of rock that rose from 
the west bank of the Canal at that point nearly 
44,000 pounds of dynamite had been neatly tamped 
away in the holes drilled for that purpose. Actually 
the last hole of this prodigious battery was being 
tamped when it exploded and set off all the others. 
A colossal concussion shook all the face of the earth. 
The side of the hill vanished in a cloud of smoke and 
dust from which flying rocks and trees rose into the 
air. When the roar of the explosion died away 
cries of anguish rose on the trembling air. About 
the scene of the explosion an army of men had been 
working, and of these 26 had been killed outright 
and a host more wounded. No such disaster has 
ever occurred again though there have been several 
small ones, and many narrow escapes from large ones. 



THE EXPLOSIVE EXPERIENCE OF MIGUEL 



209 



Once a steam shovel taking its accustomed bite 
of four or five cubic yards of dirt, engulfed at the 
same time about a bushel of dynamite left from the 
French days. Again the teeth of a shovel bit upon 
the fulminate cap of a forgotten charge. In both 
these cases the miraculous happened and no 
explosion occurred. When one reads in the Offi- 
cial Handbook issued by the 
Commission that a pound 
of dynamite has been used 
to about every two cubic 
yards of material blasted, and 
compares it with the total ex- 
cavation of about 200,000,- 
000 cubic yards one thinks 
that even the undoubted sins 
of the Isthmus during its 
riotous days are expiated 
by such a vigorous blowing 
up. 

One day at Matachin an 
engineer with whom I was talking called a Span- 



iard and sent him off on an errand. I noticed 
the man walked queerly and commented on it. 
"It's a wonder that 
fellow walks at 
all", said mv 





JAMAICANS OPERATING A COMPRESSED AIK URILL 



HANDLING ROCK IN ANCON QUARRY 

friend with a laugh. "He was sitting on a 
ledge once when a blast below went off prema- 
turely and Miguel, with three or four other men, 
and a few tons of rock, dirt and other debris 
went up into the air. He was literally blown at 
least 80 feet high. The other men were killed, but 
we found signs of life in him and shipped him to the 
hospital where he stayed nearly eight months. I'd 
hesitate to tell you how many bones were broken, 
but I think the spine was the only one not fractured 
and that was dislocated. His job is safe for the 
rest of his life. He loves to tell about it. Wait 
'till he gets back and I'll ask him". 

Presently Miguel returned, sideways like a crab,' 
but with agility all the same. "Tell the gentleman 
how it feels to be blown up", said the engineer. 

"Caramba! I seet on ze aidge of ze cut, smoke 
my pipe, watch ze work when — Boom! I fly up in 
air, up, up! I stop. It seem I stop long time. I 
see ozzair sings fly up past me. I start down — ■ 
I breathe smoke, sand. Bang! I hit ground. 
When I wake I in bed at hospital. Can't move. 
Same as dead" ! 

"Miguel never fails to lay stress on the time he 
stopped before beginning his descent", comments 
my friend, "and on the calmness with which he 
viewed the prospect, particularly the other things 



210 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



going up. His chief sorrow is that no moving pic- 
ture man took the incident". 

Incidents of heroic self-sacrifice are not unknown 
among the dynamite handlers. Here is the story 
of Angel Alvarez, an humble worker on the Big 
Job. He was getting ready a surface blast of dyna- 
mite and all around him men were working in calm 
assurance that he would notify them before the ex- 
plosion. Happening to glance up he saw a great 
boulder just starting to slip down the cut into the 
pit where he stood with two open boxes of dynamite. 
He knew that disaster impended. He could have 
jumped from the pit and run, saving himself but sacri- 
ficing his comrades. Instead he shouted a frantic 
warning, and seizing the two boxes of dynamite thrust 
them aside out of the way of the falling boulder. 
There was no hope for him. The rock would have 
crushed him in any event. But one stick of dyna- 
mite fell from one of the boxes and was exploded — 
though the colossal explosion that might have oc- 
curred was averted. They thought that Alvarez 
was broken to bits when they gathered him up, but 
the surgeons patched him up, and made a kind of a 
man out of him. Not very shapely or vigorous is 
Angel Alvarez now but in a sense he carries the 
lives of twenty men he saved in that moment of 
swift decision. 

The visitor to the Cut during the period of con- 
struction found two types of drills, 
the tripod and the well, busily 
preparing the chambers for 



the reception of the dynamite. Of the former there 
were 221 in use, of the latter 156. With this battery 
over 90 miles of holes have been excavated in a 
month, each hole being about 27 feet deep. The drills 
are operated by compressed air supplied from a main 
running the length of the Cut and are in batteries 
of three to eight manned by Jamaica negroes who 
look as if the business of standing by and watching 
the drill automatically eat its way into the rock 
heartily agreed with their conception of the right 
sort of work. 

He who did not see the Culebra Cut during the 
mighty work of excavation missed one of the great 
spectacles of the ages — a sight that at no other 
time, or place was, or will be, given to man to see. 
How it was best seen many visits left me unable to 
determine. From its crest on a working day you 
looked down upon a mighty rift in the earth's crust, 
at the base of which pigmy engines and ant-like 
forms were rushing to and fro without seeming plan 
or reason. Through the murky atmosphere strange 
sounds rose up and smote the ear of the onlooker 
w4th resounding clamor. He heard the strident 
clink, clink of the drills eating their way into the 
rock; the shrill whistles of the locomotives giving 
warning of some small blast, for the great charges 




IN THE CUCARACHA SLIDE 



THE GORGEOUS COLORING OF CULEBRA 



211 



were set off out of working hours when the Cut 
was empty; the constant and uninterrupted rumble 
that told of the dirt trains ever plying over the 
crowded tracks; the heavy crash that accompanied 
the dumping of a six-ton boulder onto a flat car; 
the clanking of chains and the creaking of machinerj' 
as the arms of the steam shovels swung around look- 
ing for another load ; the cries of men, and the boom- 
ing of blasts. Collectively the sounds were harsh, 
deafening, brutal such as we might fancy would arise 
from hell were the lid of that place of fire and tor- 
ment to be lifted. 

But individually each sound betokened useful 
work and service in the cause of man and progress 
as truly as could the musical tinkle of cow bells, the 
murmur of water over a village millwheel, or the 
rude melody of the sailors' songs as they trim the 
yards for the voyage to the distant isles of spice. 
The hum of industry that the poets have loved to 
tell about loses nothing of its significance when from 
a hum it rises to a roar. Only not all the poets can 
catch the meaning of its new note. 

So much for the sounds of the Culebra Cut. on a 
work day. The sights are yet more wonderful. 
One who has looked upon the Grand Canyon of the 
Colorado will find in this man-made gash in the 
hills something of the riot of color that characterizes 
that greatest of natural wonders, but he who has 
had no such preparation will stand amazed before 
the barbaric wealth of hues which blaze forth from 
these precipitous walls. Reds predominate — red of 
as deep a crimson as though Mother Earth's bosom 
thus cruelly slashed and scarred was giving up its 
very life's blood; red shading into orange, tropical, 
hot, riotous, pulsing like the life of the old Isthmus 
that is being carved away to make place for the 
new; red, pale, pinkish, shading down almost to 
rose color as delicate as the hue on a maiden's 
cheek, typifying perhaps the first blush of the bride 
in the wedding of the Atlantic to the Pacific. Yel- 
low too from the brightest orange to the palest 
ochre, and blue from the shade of indigo which Co- 
lumbus hoped to bring across this very Isthmus 
from the bazaars of Cathay; purple as royal as 
Ferdinand and Isabella ever wore, or the paler 
shades of the tropic sky are there. As you look 
upon the dazzling array strung out before you for 
miles you may reflect that imbedded in those parti- 




BROW OF GOLD HILL, CULEBRA CUT 



212 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



colored rocks and clays are semi-precious stones of 
varied shades and sorts — beryls, moss agates, blood- 
stones, moonstones which the workmen pick up 
and sell to rude lapidaries who cut and sell them to 
tourists. ' But in all this colossal tearing up of the 
earth's surface there has been found none of the gold 
for which the first white men lusted, nor any precious 
stone or useful mineral whatsoever. 

Again I looked on the Cut from above one morn- 
ing before the breeze that blows across the Isthmus 
from nine o'clock in the morning until sundown, 
had driven out of it the mists of early dawn. From 
unseen depths filled with billowy vapor rose the 
clatter of strenuous toil by men and machines, soft- 
ened somewhat by the fleecy material through which 
they penetrated. Of the workers no sign appeared 
until the growing heat of the sun and the freshening 
breeze began to sweep the Cut clear in its higher 
reaches, and there on the topmost terrace of Gold 
Hill, half a mile across the abyss from where I stood, 
was revealed a monster steam shovel digging away 
at the crest of the hill to lighten the weight that 
was crowding acres upon acres of broken soil into 

the canal below. It 
seemed like a mechanical 
device on some gigantic 
stage, as with noiseless 





l^lwlo by VnUiTwooU .i- i' ndiriroud 



A DIRT-SPREADER AT WORK 



EVERY BITE RECORDED AT HEADQUARTERS 

ferocity it burrowed into the hillside, then shaking 
and trembling with the effort swung back its long arm 
and disgorged its huge mouthful on the waiting fiat 
cars. The curtain of mist was slowly disappearing. 
From my lofty eyrie on an outjutting point of Con- 
tractor's Hill it seemed as if the stage was being dis- 
played, not by the lifting of a curtain, but rather 
by the withdrawal of a shield downward so that the 
higher scenery became first visible. One by one the 
terraces cut into the lofty hillsides were exposed to 
view, each with its line of tugging steam shovels 
and its rows of motionless empty cars, or rolling 
filled ones rumbling away to the distant dump. 
Now and again a sudden eruption of stones and dirt 
above the shield of fog followed in a few seconds by 
a dull boom told of some blast. So dense was the 
mist that one marvelled how in that narrow lane 
below, filled with railroad tracks, and with busy 
trains rushing back and forth men could work save 
at imminent danger of disaster. Death lurked there 

at all times and the gray 
covering of fog was more 
than once in the truest 
sense a pall for some poor 
mutilated human frame. 
Perhaps the most im- 
pressive view of the Cut 
in the days of its activity 
was that from above. It 
was the one which gave 
the broadest general sense 
of the prodigious pro- 
portions of the work. 
But a more terrifying 
one, as well as a more 



THE PERILOUS PASSAGE OF CULEBRA CUT 



!I3 



precise comprehension of the infinity of de- 
tail coupled with the magnitude of scope of 
the work was to be obtained by plodding 
on foot through the five miles where the battle 
of Culebra was being most fiercely fought. The 
powers that be — or that were — did not encourage 
this method of observation. They preferred to 
send visitors through this Death's Lane, this 
confusing network of busy tracks, in an observa- 
tion car built for the purpose, or in one of the trim 
little motor cars built to run on the railroad tracks 
for the use of officials. From the fact that one of 
the latter bore the somewhat significant nickname 
"The Yellow Peril" and from stories of accidents 
which had occurred to occupants of these little 
scouts among the mighty engines of v/ar, I am in- 
clined to think that the journey on foot, if more 
wearisome, was not more perilous. 

Put on then a suit of khaki with stout shoes and 
take the train for Culebra. That will be as good a 
spot as any to descend into the Cut, and we will 
find there some airy rows of perpendicular ladders 
connecting the various levels up and down which an 
agile monkey, or Col. Gaillard or any of his assistants, 
can run with ease, but which we descend with in- 
finite caution and some measure of nervous appre- 
hension. Probably the first sound that will greet 
your ears above the general clatter, when youhave 
attained the floor of the Canal will be a stentorian. 




THE TRACK SlIli'TER IN ACTION 

cry of "Look out, there! Look out"! You will 
hear that warning hail many a time and oft in the 
forenoon's walk we are about to take. I don't know 
of any spot where Edward Everett Hale's motto, 
"Look Out and Not In; Look Up and Not Down; 
Look Forward and Not Back" needs editing more 
than at Culebra. The wise man looked all those 
ways and then some. For trains are bearing down 
upon you from all directions and so close are the 
tracks and so numerous the switches that it is im- 
possible to tell the zone of safety except by observ- 
ing the trains themselves. If your gaze is too in- 
tently fixed on one point a warning cry may call 
your attention to the arm of a steam shovel above 




Photo by Uniicruvua ii- Cndtruood 



A LIDGERWOOD UNLOADER AT WORK 



214 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



your head with a 
five-ton boulder 
insecurely bal- 
anced, or a big, 
black Jamaican a 
few yards ahead 
perfunctorily 
waving a red flag 
in token that a 
"dobe" blast is 
to be fired. A 
"dobe" blast is 
regarded with 
contempt by the 
fellows who ex- 
plode a few tons 
of dynamite at a 
time and demol- 
ish a whole hill- 
side, but the 
"dobes" throw 
fifty to one hun- 
dred pound stones about in a reckless way that 
compels unprofessional respect. They tell a story 
on the Zone of a negro who, not thinking himself in 
range, was sitting on a box of dynamite calmly 
smoking a cigarette. A heavy stone dropped 
squarely on his head killing him instantly, but was 
sufficiently deflected by the hardness of the Ethio- 
pian skull to miss the box on which the victim sat. 



I ^ 









,#- 



ONE OF THE COLONEL S TROUBLES 
This shovel was overwhelmed by a slide. The accident is not uncommon 



Had it been other- " 
wise the neigh- 
boring landscape 
and its popula- 
tion would have 
been materially 
changed. 

It is no wonder 
that we have 
trains to dodge 
during the course 
of our stroll. 
There are at the 
moment of our 
visit 115 locomo- 
tives and 2000 
cars in service in 
the Cut. About 
1 60 loaded trains 
go out daily, and, 
of course about 
1 60 return empty. 
Three hundred and twenty trains in the eight-hour 
day, with two hours' intermission at noon, means 
almost one train a minute speeding through a right 
of way 300 feet wide and much cluttered up with 
shovels, drills and other machinery. In March, 191 1 , 
the record month, these trains handled 1,728,748 
cubic yards of material, carrying all to the dumps 
which average 12 miles distant, the farthest one being 





FUoto by Underwood & UnderwoQct 



THE SLICED-OFF HILL AT ANCON 



THE ALMOST HUMAN WORK OF THE STEAM SHOVEL 



215 




Photo bi/ S. H. ElUoU 



A LOCK-CHAMBER FROM ABOVE 



33 miles. The lay mind does not at first think of 
it, but it is a fact that it was no easy task to select 
spots for all this refuse in a territory only 436 
square miles in area, of which 164 square miles is 
covered by Gatun Lake and much of the rest is 
higher than the Cut and therefore unsuited for 
dumps. The amount of material disposed of would 
create new land worth untold millions could it have 
been dumped along the lake front of Chicago, or in 
the Hackensack meadows near New York. 

To load these busy trains there were in the Cut 
in its busiest days 43 steam shovels mainly of the 
type that would take five cubic yards of material at 
a bite. One load for each of these shovels weighed 
8.7 tons of rock, 6.7 tons of earth, or 8.03 tons of 
the "run of the Cut" — the 
mixed candy of the Culebra 
shop. March 11, 191 1, was 
the record day for work on 
the Central Division of 
which the Cut is the largest 
component part. That day 
333 loaded trains were run 
out and as many in, and 51 
steam shovels and 2 cranes 
with orange peel buckets 
excavated 127,742 tons of 
material. It was no day for 
nervous tourists to go sight- 
seeing in the Cut. 

Let us watch one of the 
steam shovels at work. You 
will notice first that it re- 



quires two railroad tracks for its operation — the 
one on which it stands and one by the side on 
which are the fiat cars it is to load. If the material 
in which it is to work is clay or sand, the shovel 
track is run close to the side of the hill to be cut 
away; otherwise the blasters will have preceded 
it and a great pile of broken rock lies by the side 
of the track or covering it before the shovel. 
Perched on a seat which revolves with the swinging 
arm a man guides the great steel jaws to the point 
of excavation. A tug at one lever and the jaws 
begin to bite into the clay, or root around in the 
rock pile until the toothed scoops have filled the 
great shovel that, closed, is rather bigger than a 
boarding house hall bedroom. A tug at another 




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WHEN THE OBISPO BROKE IN 



2l6 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



lever and they close. A third lever causes the 
arm to swing until it comes to a stop above the 
flat car, then with a roar and a clatter the whole 
load is dumped. Perhaps then the trouble is 
just beginning. Once in a while a boulder of ir- 
regular shape rolls about threatening to fall to the 
ground. With almost human intelligence the great 



trained elephants pile teak lumber, pushing with 
tusk and pulling with trunk until the beams lie level 
and parallel to an inch. But marvelous as is the 
delicacy with which the unwieldy animals perform 
their work, it is outdone by the miraculous ingenu- 
ity with which the inventive mind of man has 
adapted these monsters of steel to their appointed 




ej^^**^.*^ 





Photo- bt/ Underwood & Vnderivood 



UNGAINLY MONSTERS OF STEEL WORKING WITH HUMAN SKILL 



rigid arm of the shovel follows it, checking it as it 
approaches the edge of the car, pushing it back, 
buttressing it with other stones, so that when the 
train gets under way it may by no chance fall off. 
Sometimes you see all this done from a point at 
which the directing man is invisible and the effect 
is uncanny. 

Travelers in Burmah are fond of telling how the 



task. We shall see on the Zone many mechanical 
marvels, but to my mind the sight of a man, seated 
placidly in a comfortable chair, and with a touch on 
levers making a twenty foot steel arm, with a pair 
of scoops each as big as a hogshead at the end, feel 
up and down a bit of land until it comes upon a 
boulder weighing five tons, then pick it up, deposit 
it on a flat car, and block it around with smaller 



THE WORK OF THE STEAM-SHOVELLERS 



217 




BUILDING AN UPPER TIER Of LOCKS 

stones to hold it firm — this spectacle I think will 
rank with any as an illustration of mechanical 
genius. It is a pity old Archimedes, who professed 
himself able to move the world with a lever 
if he could only find a place for his fulcrum, 
could not 
sit a while in 
the chair of an 
Isthmian 
steam shoveler. 
These men earn 
from $210 to 
$240 a month 
and are the 
aristocracy of 
the mechanical 
force in a soci- 
ety where every- 
body is frankly 
graded accord- 
ing to his earn- 
ings. They say 
their work is 
exceedingly 
hard upon the 
nerves, a state- 
ment which I 
can readily 
credit after 
watching them 
at it. Once in 



a great while they deposit the six-ton load of a shovel 
on top of some laborer's head. Incidents of this 
sort are wearing on their nerves and also upon the 
physique of the individual upon whom the burden 
has been laid. On several occasions I timed steam 
shovels working in the Cut on various sorts of 
material and found the period occupied in get- 
ting a load, depositing it on the car and getting 
back into position for another bite to be a frac- 
tion less than two minutes. According to my 
observations from five to eight shovel loads filled 
a car. The car once filled, a big negro wig-wagged 
the tidings to the engineer who pulled the train 
ahead the length of one car. The Jamaica negro 
wig-wagging is always a pleasing spectacle. He 
seems to enjoy a job as flagman which gives from 
five to fifteen minutes of calm refiection to each 
one minute of wagging. Far be it from me to 
question the industry of these sable Britons by 
whom the Canal is being built. Their worth in any 
place, except that of waiters at the Tivoli Hotel, 
must be conceded. But their specialty is undoubt- 




TRAVELING CRANES THAT BEAR THE BRUNT OE BURDEN CARRYING 



2l8 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



edly wig-wag- 
ging- 

If we climb up- 
on one of the emp- 
ty fiat cars we 
will see that upon 
the floor of the 
whole train, usu- 
ally made up of 
about 20 cars, is 
stretched a stout 
cable attached to 
a heavy iron 
wedge like a snow 
plow which, while 
the train is load- 
ing, is on the end 
car. Hinged 
sheets of steel fall 
into place be- 
tween the cars, 
making the train 
floor continuous 

from end to end. If we should accompany the train 
to the dump — say at the great fill at Balboa about 
twelve miles from the Cut — we shall find that when it 





Photo by Brown Bros. 



THE FLOOR OF A LOCK 



EXCAVATING WITH A MONITOR AS CALIFORNIANS DIG GOLD 

has reached its assigned position a curious looking car 
on which is an engine which revolves a huge drum, 
or bull wheel, is attached in place of the locomotive. 
The end of the steel cable buried under hundreds of 
tons of rock and dirt is fastened to the bull wheel, 
the latter begins to revolve and the steel plow be- 
gins to travel along the train thrusting the load off 
to one side. One side of the flat cars is built up 
and the plow is so constructed that the load is 
thrown to the other side only. It takes from 7 to 
15 minutes to unload a train by this device which is 
known as the Lidgerwood Unloader. 

Now it is apparent that after a certain number of 
trains have thus been unloaded the side of the 
track on which the load falls, unless it be a very 
deep ravine, will presently be so filled up that no 
more loads can be dumped there. To smooth out 
this mound of dirt along the track another type of 
snow plow is used, one stretching out a rigid steel 
arm ten or twelve feet from the side of the locomo- 
tive which pushes it into the mass of debris. This 
is called a spreader and as may well be imagined re- 
quires prodigious power. The dump heap thus 
spread, and somewhat leveled by hand labor, be- 
comes a base for another track. 



THE ALMOST INDESPENSIBLE TRACK SHIFTER 



219 



In the early days of the work this business of 
shifting tracks required the services of .hundreds of 
men. But it grew so steadily under the needs of 
the service — they say the Panama Railway runs 
sideways as well as lengthwise — that the mechanical 
genius of American engineers was called into play 
to meet the situation. Wherefore behold the track- 
shifter, an engine operating a long crane which 
picks up the track, ties, rails and all, and swings 
it to one side three feet or more according to the 
elasticity of the track. It takes nine men to operate 
a track shifter, and it does the work which took 
500 men pursuing the old method of pulling spikes, 
shifting ties and rails separately and spiking the 
rails down again. It is estimated that by this device 
the government was saved several million dollars, 
to say nothing of an enormous amount of time. 
While the Panama Railroad is only 47 miles long it 
has laid almost 450 miles of rails, and these are con- 



tinually being taken up and shifted, particularly 
those laid on the bed of the Canal in Culebra Cut. 
It is perfectly clear that to keep the steam shovels 
within reaching distance of the walls they are to dig 
away, the track on which they operate and the track 
on which their attendant dirt trains run must be 
shifted laterally every two or three days. 

Looking up from the floor of the Canal one had in 
those days of rushing construction a prospect at 
once gigantic, brilliant and awe inspiring. Between 
Gold Hill and Contractors Hill the space open to 
the sky is half a mile wide and the two peaks tower 
toward the sky 534 feet to the one side and 410 on 
the other. We see again dimly through the smoke 
of the struggling locomotives and the fumes of ex- 
ploding dynamite the prismatic color of the stripped 
sides of the hill, though on the higher altitudes un- 
touched by recent work and unscarred by slides the 
tropical green has already covered all traces of 




Photo hu VndtTWOod S: L'ndLruood 



A STEAM SHOVEL IN OPERATION 



220 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




BIRD S EYE VIEW OE THE MIRAFLORES LOCKS 



man's mutilations. In time, of course, all this color- 
ing will disappear and the ships will steam along 
betwixt two towering walls of living green. 

One's attention, however, wHen in the Cut is held 
mainly by its industrial rather than by its scenic 
features. For the latter the view from above, al- 
ready described, is incalculably the better. But 
down here in the depths your mind is gripped by 
the signs of human activity on every side. Every- 
thing that a machine can do is being done by ma- 
chinery, yet there are 6000 men working in this 
narrow way, men white and black and of every 
intermediate and indeterminate shade. Men who 
talk in Spanish, French, the gibberish of the Jamai- 
can, in Hindoo, in Chinese. One thinks it a pity 
that Col. Goethals and his chief lieutenants could 
not have been at the Tower of Babel, for in that event 
that aspiring en- 
terprise would 
never have been 
halted by so com- 
monplace an ob- 
stacle as the con- 
fusion of tongues. 

To us as we 
plod along all 
seems to be con- 
ducted with ter- 
rific energy, but 
without any rec- 
ognizable plan. 
As a matter of 
fact all is being 




THE ROCK-BREAK THAT ADMITTED THE BAS OBISFU 



directed in accordance with an iron-clad system. 
That train, the last cars of which are being loaded, on 
the second level must be out of the Cut and on the 
main line at a fixed hour or there will be a tie-up of 
the empties coming back from the distant dumps. 
That row of holes must be drilled by five o'clock, 
for the blast must be fired as soon as the Cut is emp- 
tied of workers. The very tourists on the observa- 
tion car going through the Cut must be chary of 
their questions, for that track is needed now for a 
train of material. If they are puzzled by some- 
thing they see, it will all be explained to them later 
by the guide in his lecture illustrated by the working 
model at the Tivoli Hotel. 

So trudging through the Cut we pass under a 
slender foot bridge suspended across the Canal 
from towers of steel framework. The bridge was 

erected by the 
French and wiU 
have to come 
down when the 
procession of ships 
begins the pas- 
sage of the Canal. 
Originally its 
towers were of 
wood, but a man 
idly ascending one 
thought it sound- 
ed hollow beneath 
his tread and, on 
examination, 
found the interior 



THE INDUSTRIOUS ANTS OF PANAMA 



221 



had been hollowed out by termite ants leaving a mere 
shell which might give way under any unaccustomed 
strain. This is a pleasant habit of these insects and 
sometimes produces rather ludicrous results when a 
heavy individual encounters a chair that has 
engaged their attention. 

The activity and industry of the ant are of course 
proverbial in every clime, but it seems to me that 
in the Isthmus particularly he appears to put 
the sluggard to shame. As you make your way 
through the jungle you will now and again come 
upon miniature roads, only about four inches wide 
it is true, but vastly smoother and better cleaned of 
vegetation than the paths which the Panamanians 
dignify with the name of roads. Along these high- 
ways trudges an endless army of ants, those going 
homeward bearing burdens of leaves which, when 
buried in their subterranean homes, produce fungi 
on which the insects live. Out on the savanna you 
will occasionally find a curious mound of hard dirt, 



sometimes stand- 
ing taller than a 
man and rising 
abruptly from the 
plain. It is an 
ant's nest built 
about a shrub or 
small tree, which 
usually dies off so 
that no branches 
protrude in any 
direction. A large 
one represents 
long years of the 
work of the tiny 
insects. Col. Goe- 
thals has made a 
great working ma- 
chine of the Canal 
organization but 



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A TERMITE ANT S NEST 
The ants' work kills the tree 



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I'hoio by H. Pitlier. 



Courtesy National Geographic Magazine 

AN ant's NEST ON THE SAVANNA 



he can teach the ants nothing so far 
as patient and continuous industry 
is concerned. 

We come in due time to the upper 
entrance of the Pedro Miguel lock. 
Here the precipitous sides of the 
Canal have vanished, and the walls 
of the lock have in fact to be built 
up above the adjacent land. This 
is the end of the Central Division — 
the end of the Culebra Cut. The 
8.8 miles we have left behind us 
have been the scene, perhaps, of the 
most Vonderful exercise of human 
ingenuity, skill and determination 
ever manifested in any equal space 
in the world — and I won't even ex- 
cept Wall Street, where ingenuity 
and skill in cutting things down are 
matter of daily observation. But 
nowhere else has man locked with 
nature in so desperate a combat. 
More spectacular engineering is per-, 
haps to be seen on some of the rail- 
roads through our own Sierras or on 
the trans-Andean lines. Such dams 
as the Roosevelt or the Shoshone of 
our irrigation service are more im- 



222 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



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DEEP SEA- DREDGE AT BALBOA 

pressive than the squat, immovable ridge at Gatun. 
But the engineers who planned the campaign against 
the Cordilleras at Culebra had to meet and over- 
come more novel obstacles, had to wrestle with a 
problem more appalling in magnitude than any that 
ever confronted men of their profession in any other 
land or time. 

As no link in a chain is of less importance than any 
other link, so the Pacific Division of the Panama 
Canal is of equal importance with the other two. 
It has not, however, equally spectacular features. 
Its locks at Pedro Miguel and at Miraflores are 
merely replicas of the Gatun locks with different 
drops, and separated into one step of two parallel 
locks at the former point, and two steps, with four 
locks in pairs at Miraflores. Between the two locks 
is an artificial lake about 54 2-3 feet above sea level 
and about a mile and a half long. The lake is arti- 
ficial, supplied partly by small rivers that flow into 
it and partly by the water that comes down from the 
operation of the locks above. In fact it was created 



largely for the purpose of taking care 
of this water, though it also served to 
reduce somewhat the amount of dry 
excavation on the Canal. One ad- 
vantage which both the Gatun and 
Miraflores lakes have for the sailor, 
that does not at flrst occur to the 
landsman, is that being fllled with 
fresh water, as also is the main body 
of the Canal, they will cleanse the 
bottoms of the ships passing through 
of barnacles and other marine growths. 
This is a notable benefit to ships 
engaged in tropical trade, for in those 
latitudes their bottoms become be- 
fouled in a way that seriously inter- 
feres with their steaming capacity. 

The name Pedro Miguel is given 
to this lock because the French began 
operations there on the feast day of 
St. Peter Michael, whose name in 
Spanish is applied to the spot. An 
omniscient gentleman on the train 
once assured me that the name came 
from a Spanish hermit who long lived on 
the spot in the odor of sanctity — and 
divers other odors if the haunts of the 
hermits I have visited elsewhere were any criterion. 




PROPORTIONS OF THE LOCKS 

A six story building would stand in tlie lock-chamber. Size of 
conduits indicated by small sketches of wagon and locomotive. 



THE END OF THE CANAL AT BALBOA 



Errors of fact, however, are common on the 
zone. They still laugh about a congressman who, 
on Gatun dam, struck an attitude and exclaimed 
with feeling — "At last then I stand in the far- 
famed Culebra Cut"! which spot was a trifle more 
than thirty miles away. 

From the lower lock at Miraflores the canal de- 
scribes a practically straight course to the Pacific 
Ocean at Balboa, about 43^2 miles. The channel is 
continued out to sea about four miles further. All 
the conditions of the Pacific and Oriental trade give 
assurance that at Balboa will grow the greatest of all 
purely tropical ports. To it the commerce of the 
whole Pacific coast of North America, and of South 
America as far south at least as Lima, will irresisti- 
bly flow. To it will also come the trade of Japan, 
Northern China and the Philippines, seeking the 
shortest route to Europe or to our own Atlantic 
coast. It is true that much of this trade will pass 
by, but the ships will enter the Canal after long voy- 
ages in need of coal and in many cases of refitting. 
The government has anticipated this need by pro- 
viding for a monster dry dock, able to accommodate 
the 1000 foot ships yet to be built, and establishing 
repair shops fit to build ships as well as to repair 
them. In 1913, however, when this trip through 



the Canal under construction was made, little sign 
of this coming greatness was apparent. The old 
dock of the Pacific Mail and a terminal pier of the 
Panama Railroad afforded sufficient dockage for the 
steamships of which eight or ten a week cleared or 
arrived. The chief signs of the grandeur yet to 
come were the never-ceasing dirt trains rumbling 
down from Culebra Cut and discharging their loads 
into the sea in a great fan shaped "fill" that will 
afford building sites for all the edifices of the future 
Balboa, however great it may become. Looking 
oceanward you see the three conical islands on' 
which the United States is already erecting its 
fortifications. 

Here then the Canal ends. Begun in the ooze of 
Colon it is finished in the basaltic rock of Balboa. 
To carry it through its fifty miles the greatest forces 
of nature have been utilized when possible; fought 
and overcome when not. It has enlisted genius, 
devotion and sacrifice, and has inflicted sickness, 
wounds and death. We can figure the work in 
millions of dollars, or of cubic yards, but to esti- 
mate the cost in life and health from the time the 
French began until the day the Americans ended is 
a task for the future historian, not the present-day 
chronicler. 




IHE GREAT FILL AT BALBOA WHERE THE CULEBRA SPOIL IS DUMPED 



CHAPTER XIII 



THE CITY OF PANAMA. 



OR an American not too much 
spoiled with foreign travel 
the city of Panama is a most 
entertaining stopping place 
for a week or more. In what 
its charm consists it is 
hard to say. Foreign it is, 
of course, a complete change 
from anything within the 
borders, or for that matter 
close to the bounds of the 
United States. But it is not so thorough a specimen 
of Latin-American city building as Cartagena, its 




neighbor. Its architecture is admittedly common- 
place, the Cathedral itself being interesting mainly be- 
cause of its antiquity — and it would be modem in old 
Spain. The Latin gaiety of its people breaks out in 
merry riot at carnival time, but it is equally riotous 
in every town of Central America. Withal there is a 
something about Panama that has an abiding novelty. 
Perhaps it is the tang of the tropics added to the 
flavor of antiquity. Anyhow the' tourist who abides in 
the intensely modern and purely United States hotel, 
the Tivoli, has but to give a dime to a Panama hack- 
man to be transported into an atmosphere as foreign 
as though he had suddenly been wafted to Madrid. 




PANAMA BAY TROM ANCON HILL 
224 



THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF PANAMA CITY 



225 



Latter-day tourists 
complain that the san- 
itary efforts of the 
Isthmian Commission 
have robbed Panama 
of something of its 
picturesqueness. They 
deplore the loss of the 
streets that were too 
sticky for the passage 
of Venetian gondo- 
las, but entirely too 
liquid for ordinary 
means of locomotion. 
They grieve over the 
disappearance of the 
public roulette wheels 
and the monotonous 
cry of the numbers at 
keno. They complain 
that the population has 
taken to the practice 
of wearing an inordi- 
nate quantity of clothes 
instead of being con- 
tent with barely enough 
to pique curiosity con- 
cerning the few charms 
concealed. But though 
the city has been re- 
markably purified 
there is still enough of 
physical dirt apparent 
to displease the most 
fastidious, and quite 
sufficient moral un- 
cleanliness if one seeks 
for it, as in other towns. 

The entrance by railway to Panama is not pre- 
possessing, but for that matter I know of few cities 
in which it is. Rome and Genoa perhaps excel in 
offering a fine front to the visitor. But in Panama 
•when you emerge from the station after a journey 
clear across the continent, which has taken you about 
three hours, you are confronted by a sort of ragged 
triangular plaza. In the distance on a hill to your 
right is set the Tivoli Hotel looking cool and inviting 
with its broad piazzas and dress of green and white. 




The fence is now removed. During 



SANTA ANA PLAZA 

the French days this Plaza was the scene of much gaiety and still 
shows French influence 

To your left is a new native hotel, the International, 
as different from the Tivoli as imaginable, built of 
rubble masonry covered with concrete stucco, with 
rooms twice as high as those of the usual American 
building. It looks cool too, in a way, and its most 
striking feature is a pleasingly commodious bar, 
with wide open unscreened doors on the level of the 
sidewalk. The Tivoli Hotel, being owned and 
managed by the United States government, has no 
bar. This statement is made in no spirit of invidious 



226 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



comparison, but 
merely as a matter 
of helpful informa- 
tion to the arriving 
traveler undecided 
which hotel to 
choose. 

The plaza is filled 
with Panama cabs 
— small open vic- 
torias, drawn by 
stunted wiry horses 
like our cow ponies 
and driven by Pan- 
ama negroes who 
either do not speak 
English, or, in many 
cases, pretend not 
to in order to save 
themselves the 
trouble of explain- 
ing any of the sights 
to their fares. 
There is none of 
the bustle that at- 
tends the arrival 
of a train in an 
American city. No 
raucous cries of 
"Keb, sir? Keb"! 
no ingratiating 

eagerness to seize upon your baggage, no ready 
proffer of willingness to take you anywhere. If 
the Panama cabby shows any interest at all in 
getting a fare out of an arriving crowd it seems 
to be in evading the one who beckons him, and 
trying to capture someone else. One reason per- 
haps for the lethargy of these sable jehus is that 
the government has robbed their calling of its 
sporting feature by fixing their fare at ten cents 
to any place in town. Opportunity to rob a 
fare is almost wholly denied them, hence their 
dejected air as compared with the alert piratical 
demeanor of the buccaneers who kidnap passengers 
at the railway stations of our own enlightened land. 
The only way the Panama driver can get the best 
of the passenger is by construing each stop as the 
end of a trip, and the order to drive on as consti- 




Photo by CJjideTwood & Underwood 

PANAMA from; THE SEA WALL; 



tuting a new en- 
gagement involv- 
ing an additional 
dime. Tourists 
who jovially drew 
up to the curbstone 
to greet acquaint- 
ances met en route 
several times in a 
half-hour's ride are 
said to have been 
mulcted of a sur- 
prising number of 
dimes, but in jus- 
tice to the Panama 
hackman — who 
really doesn't have 
the air of rioting in 
ill-gotten wealth — 
I must say that I 
never encountered 
an instance of this 
overcharge. 

Your first intro- 
duction to the 
beauty of Panama 
architecture comes 
from a building 
that fronts you as 
you leave your 
train. Three sto- 
ries high it has the massive strength of a confectioner's 
creations, and is tastefully colored a sickly green, re- 
lieved by stripes of salmon pink, with occasional 
interludes of garnet and old gold. The fact that it 
houses a saloon, the proportions of which would be 
generous on the Bowery or South Clark Street, does 
not explain this brilliant color scheme. It is merely 
the expression of the local color sense, and is quite 
likely to be employed to lend distinction to a con- 
vent school or a fashionable club indiscriminately. 
From the Railway Plaza — originality has not yet 
furnished a more attractive name — the Avenida 
Centrale stretches away in a generally southerly 
direction to the seawall at the city's end. What 
Broadway is to New York, the Corso to Rome, or 
Main Street to Podunk, this street is to Panama. 
It is narrow and in time will be exceedingly crowded. 



CATHEDRAL TOWERS IN DISTANCE 



THE POPULAR PANAMA LOTTERY 



227 



for the rails of a trolley 
line are laid on one 
side, and some time in 
the leisurely Panaman- 
ian future the cars will 
run through the old 
town and so on out to 
Balboa where the 
Americans are build- 
ing the great docks at 
the entrance to the 
Canal. Just now how- 
ever it is chiefly crowd- 
ed with the light open 
carriages which toward 
eventide carry up and 
down the thorough- 
fare olive-complex- 
ioned gentlemen who look smilingly at the balconies 
on either side whence fair ones — of varying degrees 
of fairness with a tendency toward the rich shade of 
mahogany — look down approvingly. 

Panama is an old city, as American cities run, for 
it was founded in 1673 when the Bishop marked 
with a cross the place for the Cathedral. The 
Bishop still plays a notable part in the life of the 
town, for it is to his palace in Cathedral Plaza that 
you repair Sunday mornings to hear the lucky 




nil. 1'A>.,\\1A W A 1 1 



IKdXl 




THE BULL ring; BULL FIGHTS ARE NOW PROHIBITED 



number in the lottery announced. This curious 
partnership between the church and the great 
gambling game does not seem to shock or even 
perplex the Panamanians, and as the State turns 
over to the church a very considerable percentage 
of the lottery's profits it is perhaps only fair for 
the Bishop to be thus hospitable. If you jeer a 
well-informed Panamanian on the relations of his 
church to the lottery he counters by asking suavely 
about the filthy tenement houses owned by Old 

Trinity in New York. 
As a vested right under 
the Colombian govern- 
ment the lottery will con- 
tinue until 1918, then ex- 
pire under the clause in 
the Panama constitution 
which prohibits gambling. 
Drawings are held each 
Sunday. Ten thousand 
tickets are issued at a 
price of $2.50 each, 
though the custom is to 
buy one-fifth of a ticket 
at a time. The capital 
prize is $7500 with lesser 
prizes of various sums 
down to one dollar. The 
Americans on the Zone 
buy eagerly, but I could 



228 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




THE LOTTERY OFFICE IN THE BISHOP'S PALACE 

not learn of any one who had captured a considerable 
prize. One official who systematically set aside $5 a 
week for tickets told me that, after four years' play- 
ing, he was several hundred dollars ahead "beside 
the fun". 

Though old historically, Panama is modern archi- 
tecturally. It was repeatedly swept by fires even 
before the era of overfumigation by the Canal 
builders. Five fires considerable enough to be called 
"great" are recorded. Most of the churches have 
been burned at 
least once and the 
fagade of the Ca- 
thedral was over- 
thrown by an earth- 
quake. The San 
Domingo Church, 
the Church and 
Convent of San 
Francisco, and the 
Jesuit Church still 
stand in ruins. In 
Italy or England 
these ruins would 
be cared for, 
clothed by pious, 
or perhaps prac- 
tical, hands with a 
I certain sort of dig- 
nity. Not so in 
Panama. The San 
Domingo Church, 
much visited . by 



tourists because of its curious flat arch, long housed 
a cobbler's bench and a booth for curios. Now 
its owner is utilizing such portions of the ruin 
as are still stable as part of a tenement house he 
is building. When reproached for thus obliterating 
an historic relic he blandly offered to leave it in 
its former state, provided he were paid a rental 
equal to that the tenement would bring in. There 
being no society for the preservation of historic 
places in Panama his offer went unheeded, and the 
church is fast being built into the walls of a flat- 
house. As for the Church of the Jesuits its floor 
is gone, and cows and horses are stabled in the sanc- 
tuary of its apse. 

The streets of Panama look older than they really 
are. The more substantial buildings are of rubble 
masonry faced with cement which quickly takes on 
an appearance of age. Avenida Centrale is lined 
for all but a quarter of a mile of its length with 
shops, over which as a rule the merchant's family 
lives — for the Panamanians, like other Latins, have 
not yet acquired the New York idea that it is vulgar, 
to live over your own place of business but perfectly 
proper to live two miles or more away over someone 
else's drug store, grocery, stationery store, or what 




SAN DOMINGO CHURCH AND THE FLAT ARCH 



PANAMA'S COST OF LIVING IS HIGH 



229 



not. There might be an essay 
written on the precise sort of a 
business place above which it is 
correct for an American to live. 
Of course the nature of the en- 
trance counts, and much pro- 
priety is saved if it be on the side 
front thus genteelly concealing 
from guests that there are any 
shops in the building at all. 
These considerations however 
are not important in Panama, 
and many of the best apartments 
are reached through dismal doors 
and up winding stairways which 
seldom show signs of any squeam- 
ishness on the part of the domes- 
tics, or intrusive activity by the 
sanitary officers. 

Often, however , the apartments 
reached by such uninviting gateways are charming. 
The rooms are always big, equivalent each to about 
three rooms of our typical city flat. Great French 
windows open to the floor, and give upon broad ve- 
randas, from which the life of the street below may be 
observed — incidentally letting in the street noises 
which are many and varied. The tendency is to the 
minimum of furniture, and that light, so as to admit 
easy shifting to the breeziest spots. To our northern 
eyes the adjective "bare" would generally apply 





Ptioto by F. A Gtiusc 

CHIRIQUI CATTLE AT THE ABATTOIR 



THE PRESIDENT S HOUSE: A FINE TYPE OF PANAMA RESIDENCE 



to these homes, but their furnishings are adapted to 
the climate and to the habits of people living largely 
out of doors. Rents are high for a town of 35,000 
people. A five-room flat in a fairly good neighbor- 
hood will rent for from $60 to $75 gold a month, and 
as the construction is of the simplest and the land- 
lord furnishes neither heat nor janitor service, it 
seems a heavy return on the capital invested. 

It. seemed to me, as the result of questioning and 
observation rather than by any personal experience, 
that living expenses in Panama City must be high, 
and good living according to our North American 
ideas impossible. What the visitor finds in the 
homes of the people on the Canal Zone offers no 
guide to the conditions existing in the native town. 
For the Zone dwellers have the commissary to buy 
from, and that draws from all the markets of the 
world, and is particularly efficient in buying meats, 
which it gets from our own Beef Trust and sells for 
about half of what the market man in Chicago or 
New York exacts. But the native Panamanian has 
no such source of supply. His meats are mainly 
native animals fresh killed, and if you have a taste 
for sanguinary sights you may see at early dawn 
every morning numbers of cattle and hogs 
slaughtered in a trim and cleanly open air abattoir 
which the Panamanians owe to the Canal authori- 
ties. However the climate tends to encourage a 



230 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Plioto bi/ Gause 



THE FISH MARKET 



fish and vegetable diet, and the supphes of these 
staples are fairly good. The family buying is done 
at a central market which it is well worth the 
tourists' time to visit. 

Every day is market day at Panama, but the 
crowded little open-air mart is seen at its best of 
a Saturday or Sunday in the early morning. All 
night long the native boats, mostly cayucas hewn 
out of a single log and often as much as 35 feet long, 
and with a schooner rig, have been drifting in, pro- 
pelled by the never-failing trade wind. They come 
from the Bayano River country, from Chorrera, 
from Taboga and the Isles of Pearls, from the Bay 



of San Miguel and from the land of the San Bias 
Indians. Great sailors these latter, veritable vikings 
of the tropics, driving their cayucas through shriek- 
ing gales when the ocean steamers find it prudent 
to stay in port. 

Nature helps the primitive people of the jungle 
to bring their goods to the waiting purchasers. 
The breeze is constant, seldom growing to a gale, 
and the tide rising full 20 feet enables them to run 
their boats at high tide close to the market cause- 
way, and when the tide retires land their products 
over the flats without the trouble of lighterage. 
True the bottom is of mud and stones, but the 
soles of the seamen are not tender, nor are they 
squeamish as to the nature of the soil on which 
they tread. 




Photo hy Gause 




SAN BLAS BOATS AT THE MARKET PLACE 



THE VEGETABLE MARKET 

The market is open at dawn, and 
the buyers are there almost as soon as 
the sellers, for early rising is the rule 
in the tropics. Along the sidewalks, 
on the curbs, in the muddy roadway 
even, the diverse fruits and food prod- 
ucts of the country are spread forth 
to tempt the robust appetites of those 
gathered about. Here is an Indian 
woman, the color of a cocoanut, and 
crinkled as to skin like a piece of 
Chinese crepe. Before her is spread 
out her stock, diverse and in some 
items curious. Green peppers, toma- 
toes a little larger than a small plum, 



SCENES IN THE PANAMA MARKET 



231 




THE MARKET ON THE CURB 

a cheese made of goat's milk and packed to about 
the consistency of Brie; a few yams, peas, limes and 
a papaya or two are the more familiar edibles. 
Something shaped like a banana and wrapped in 
corn husks arouses my curiosity. 

"What is it"? "Five cents". "No, no! I 
mean what is it? What's it made of"? "Fi 
centavo"! 

In despair over my lack of Indo-Spanish patois, 
I buy it and find a little native sugar, very moist 
and very dark, made up like a sausage, or a tamale 
in corn husks. Other mysterious objects turn out 
to be ginseng, which appeals to the resident Chinese ; 
the mamei, a curious pulpy fruit the size of a large 
peach, with a skin like chamois and a fleshly looking 



pit about the size of a peach-stone; the sapodilla, 
a plum colored fruit with a mushy interior, which 
when cut transversely shows a star-like marking and 
is sometimes called the star apple. It is eaten 
with a spoon and is palatable. The mamei, how- 
ever, like the mango, requires a specially trained 
taste. 

While puzzling over the native fruits a sudden 
clamor attracts us to a different part of the market. 
There drama is in full enactment. The market 
place is at the edge of the bay and up the water 
steps three exultant fishermen have dragged a tuna 
about five feet long, weighing perhaps 175 pounds. 
It is not a particularly large fish of the species, but 
its captors are highly exultant and one, with the 




CAYUCAS ON MARKET DAY 




WHERE THE FLIES GET BUSY 



inborn instinct of the Latin-American to insult a 
captive or a fallen foe, stands on the poor tuna's 
head and strikes an attitude as one who invites 
admiration and applause. Perhaps our camera 
tempted him, but our inclination was to kick the 
brute, rather than to perpetuate his pose, for the 
poor fish was still living. It had been caught in a 
net, so its captors informed us. On our own Florida 
and California coasts the tunas give rare sport with 
a rod and line. 

Like most people of a low order of intelligence 
the lower class native of Panama is without the 
slightest sense of humanity to dumb animals. He 
does not seem to be intentionally cruel — indeed he 
is too indolent to exert himself unless something is to 



232 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




} itolu by I ndtruood d, Vndtri^^Qd 



PANAMA FROM THE BAY; ANCON HILL IN THE BACKGROUND 



be gained. But he never lets any consideration for 
the sufferings of an animal affect his method of 
treating it. The iguana, ugliest of lizards, which 
he eats with avidity, is one of his chief victims. 
This animal is usually taken alive by hunters in 
order that he may undergo a preliminary fattening 
process before being committed to the pot. In 
captivity his condition is not pleasant to contem- 
plate. Here at the market are eight or ten, living, 
palpitating, looking out on the strange world with 
eyes of wistful misery. Their short legs are roughly 
twisted so as to cross above their backs, and the 
sharp claws on one foot are thrust through the 
fleshy part of the other so as to hold them together 
without other fastening. A five-foot iguana is fully 
three feet tail, and of that caudal yard at least two 
feet of its tapering length is useless for food, so the 
native calmly chops it off with his machete, exposing 
the mutilated but living animal for sale. 

To our northern eyes there is probably no animal 
except a serpent more repulsive than the iguana. 
He is not only a lizard, but a peculiarly hideous 
one — horned, spined, mottled and warty like a toad. 
But loathsome as he is, the wanton, thoughtless 



tortures inflicted upon him by the marketmen invest 
him with the pathetic dignity which martyrs bear. 

Fish is apparently the great staple of the Panama 
market, as beseems a place which is practically an 
island and the very name of which signifies "many 
fishes". Yet at the time I was there the variety 
exposed for sale was not great. The corbina, ap- 
parently about as staple and certain a crop as our 
northern cod, the red snapper, mullet and a flat 
fish resembling our fresh water sunfish, were all 
that were exhibited. There were a few West Indian 
lobsters too, about as large as our average sized 
lobsters, but without claws, having antennae, per- 
haps 1 8 inches long, instead. Shrimps and small 
molluscs were plentifully displayed. As to meats 
the market was neither varied nor pleasing. If the 
assiduous attentions of flies produce any effect on 
raw meats prejudicial to human health, the Panama 
market offers rich field for some extension of the 
sanitary powers of Col. Gorgas. 

In one notable respect this Panama market differs 
from most open air affairs of the sort. The vendors 
make no personal effort to sell their goods. There 
is no appeal to passing buyers, no crying of wares, 




Copyright, 1913, F. E. Wright. 



AVENIDA B. PANAMA CITY 

Most of the streets in Panama end at the water side as the city is built upon a narrow promontory. The effect 
of the blue water and sky closing the end of the narrow street of parti-colored houses is picturesque. 



THE PREVALENT TEMPER OF THE PANAMANIANS 



233 



no "ballyhoo," to employ the language of Coney 
Island. What chatter there is is chiefly among the 
buyers; the sellers sit silent by their wares and are 
more apt to receive a prospective customer sulkily 
than with alert eagerness. Indeed the prevalent 
condition of the Panamanian, so far as observable 
on the streets, seems to be a chronic case of sulks. 
Doubtless amongst his own kind he can be a merry 
dog, but in the presence of the despised "gringo" 
his demeanor is one of apathy, or contemptuous 
indifference. Perhaps what he was doing to the 
tuna and the iguana the day of our visit to the 
market was only what he would like to be doing 
to the northern invaders of his nondescript market 
place. 

If you view the subject fairly the Panamanian 
in the street is somewhat entitled to his view of the 
American invasion. Why should he be particularly 
pleased over the independence of Panama and the 
digging of the Canal? He got none of the ten 
million dollars, or of the $250,000 annual payment. 



That went to his superiors who planned the "revolu- 
tion" and told him about it when it was all over. 
The influx of Americans brought him no particular 
prosperity, unless he drove a hack. They lived in 
Commission houses and bought all their goods in 
their own commissary. It was true they cleaned 
up his town, but he was used to the dirt and the 
fumes of fumigation made him sneeze. Doubtless 
there was no more yellow fever, but he was immune 
to that anywaj'. 

But way down in the bottom of his heart the 
real unexpressed reason for the dislike of the mass 
of Panamanians for our people is their resentment 
at our hardly concealed contempt for them. To- 
ward the more prosperous Panamanian of social 
station this contempt is less manifested, and he 
accordingly shows less of the dislike for Americans 
that is too evident among the masses of the people. 
But as for the casual clerk or mechanic we Americans 
call him "spiggotty" with frank contempt for his 
undersize, his lack of education and for his 




POTTERY VENDORS NEAR THE PANAMA in\ .MARKET 



234 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



large proportion of negro blood. And the lower 
class Panamanian smarting under the contemptu- 
ous epithet retorts by caUing the North Ameri- 
cans "gringoes" and hating them with a deep, 
malevolent rancor that needs only a fit occasion 
to blaze forth in riot and in massacre. 

"Spiggotty", 
which has not yet 
found its way in- 
to the diction- 
aries , is derived 
from the saluta- 
tion of hackmen 
seeking a fare — 
" speaka-da-Eng- 
lish". Our fellow 
countrymen with 
a lofty and it 
must be admitted 
a rather provin- 
cial scorn for for- 
eign peoples — for 
your average citi- 
zen of the United 
States thinks him- 
self as superior to 
the rest of the 
world as the citi- 
zen of New York 
holds himself 
above the rest of 
the United States 
— are not careful 
to limit its appli- 
cation to Pana- 
manians of the 
hackdriving class. 
From his lofty 
pinnacle of supe- 
riority he brands 
them all, from the 
market woman with a stock of half a dozen bananas 
and a handful of mangoes to the banker or the mer- 
chant whose children are being educated in Europe 
like their father as "spiggotties". Whereat they 
writhe and curse the Yankees. 

"Gringo" is in the dictionaries. It is applied 
to pure whites of whatever nation other than 




Photo by Underwood & Underwood 

FROM A PANAMA BALCONY 
In the narrow streets the broad balconies bring neighbors close together 



Spanish or Portuguese who happen to be sojourning 
in Spanish-American lands. The Century Dictionary 
rather inadequately defines it thus: "Among Spanish 
Americans an Englishman or an Anglo-American; 
a term of contempt. Probably from Greico, a 
Greek". The dictionary derivation is not wholly 

s a t isf ac tory. 
Another one, 
based wholly on 
tradition, is to the 
effect that dur- 
ing the war with 
Mexico our sol- 
diers were much 
given to singing 
a song, "Green 
Grow the Rashes, 
Oh" ! whence the 
term "Gringoes" 
applied by the 
Mexicans. The 
etymology of in- 
ternational slang 
can never be an 
exact science, 
but perhaps this 
will serve. 

Whatever the 
derivation, what- 
ever the diction- 
ary definitions, 
the two words 
"spiggotty" and 
"gringo" stand 
for racial antag- 
onism, contempt 
and aversion on 
the part of the 
more northern 
people; malice 
and suppressed 
wrath on that of the Spanish- Americans. 

You will find this feeling outcropping in every social 
plane in the Republic of Panama. It is, however, 
noticeably less prevalent among the more educated 
classes. Into the ten mile wide Canal Zone the Amer- 
icans have poured millions upon millions of money 
and will continue to do so for a long time to come. 



WHY AMERICANS ARE NOT POPULAR 



235 



Much of this money finds its way, of course, into the versal. The ordinary demeanor of the native when 
hands of the Panamanians. The housing and com- \ accosted is sulky, even insolent. The shop-keeper, 



missary system adopted 

by the Commission have 

deprived the merchants 

and landowners of Colon 

of their richest pickings, 

but nevertheless the 

amount of good American 

money that has fallen to 

their lot is a golden 

stream greater than that 

which flowed over the 

old Royal Road in its 

most crowded days. Few 

small towns will show so 

many automobiles as Panama and they have all been 

bought since the American invasion. 

Nevertheless the Americans are hated. They are 
hated for the commissary system. The French took 
no such step to protect their workers from the 
rapacity of Panama and Colon shopkeepers, and 
they are still talking of the time of the French 
richness. They hate us because we cleaned their 
towns and are keeping them clean — not perhaps 
because they actually prefer the old filth and 
fatalities, but because their correction implies that 
they were not altogether perfect before .we came. 
For the strongest 
quality of the 
Panamanian is 
his pride, and it 
is precisely that 
sentiment which 
we North Ameri- 
cans have either 
wantonly or nec- 
essarily outraged. 

Without pre- 
tension to inti- 
mate acquaint- 
ance with Pana- 
manian home life 
I may state con- 
fidently that this 
attitude toward 
the Yankees is 
practically uni- 




THEIR FIRST COMMUNION 
Panama is a Roman Catholic City with picturesque church processions 



unless he be a Chinese, as 
most of the better ones 
are, makes a sale as if he 
were indifferent to your 
patronage, and throws 
you the finished bundle 
as though he were tossing 
a bone to a dog. One 
Sunday morning, view- 
ing the lottery drawing 
at the Archbishop's pal- 
ace, I saw a well-dressed 
Panamanian, apparently 
of the better class, roused 
to such wrath by a polite request that he remove his 
hat to give a lady a better view, that one might 
have thought the best blood of all Castile had been 
• enraged by some deadly insult. 

This smoldering wrath is ever ready to break 
■ out ; the brutal savagery which manifests itself in 
the recurrent revolutions of Spanish-America is ever 
present in Panama. On the Fourth of July, 1912, 
the Americans resident on the Zone held patriotic 
exercises at Ancon. After the speeches and the 
lunch a number of the United States marines 
wandered into the City of Panama and, after the 

unfortunate fash- 
ion of their kind, 
sought out that 
red -lighted dis- 
trict of infamy 
which the Pana- 
ma authorities 
have thoughtful- 
ly segregated in a 
space between the 
public hospital 
and the ceme- 
teries. The men 
were unarmed, 
but in uniform. 
Naturally their 
holiday began by 
visits to a num- 
ber of Panaman- 
ian gin mills 




MARRIAGE IS AN AFFAIR OF SOME POMP 



236 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




THE MANLY ART IN TIIL TROPRb 



where the hquid fuel for a fight was taken aboard. 
In due time the fight came. A Panama policeman 
intervened and was beaten for his pains. Other 
, police came to his rescue. Somebody fired a shot 
and soon the police, running to their station, 
returned with magazine rifles and began pump- 
ing bullets into the unarmed marines. The latter 
for a time responded with stones, but the odds 
were too great and they broke and ran for the Ameri- 
can territory of the Canal Zone. Meantime of 
course the noise of the fusillade had alarmed the 



American authorities. At An- 
con, separated from Panama 
City only by an imaginary 
boundary line, the Zone police 
were mustered for service in 
case of need, and at Camp 
Otis, an hour away by rail, the 
loth Infantry, U. S. A., was 
drawn up under arms, and 
trains made ready to bring the , 
troops to the riotous city at 1 
command. But the order i 
never came, though the loth 
officers and men alike were 
eager for it. It could come 
only through the American 
minister, and he was silent, 
believing that the occasion did not warrant the 
employment of the troops on the foreign soil of 
Panama. So the marines — or as many of them 
as their officers could gather up — were sent to 
their post. Camp Elliott, by train while those 
arrested by the Panamanians were taken to the . 
Chiriqui Jail, or to the Panama hospitals. In jail 
the unarmed captives were beaten and tortured after 
the fashion of the average Latin-American when he 
has a foe, helpless in his power. The day ended with 
three American marines killed and many wounded; ■ 




Photo by Underwood & Underwood 



A GROUP OF NATIONAL POLICE 



AMERICAN SENTIMENT ON THE ISTHMUS 



2,37 




TABOGA, THE PLEASURE PLACE OF PANAMA 



the Americans, soldiers and civilians, both gritting 
their teeth and eager to take possession of Panama; 
and the Panamanians, noisy, insolent, boastful, 
bragging of how they had whipped the "Yankee 
pigs" and daring the whole United States to at- 
tempt any punishment. 

The United States seems to have supinely "taken 
the dare", as the boys would say, for though the 
affray and the murders occurred in July, 1912, nothing 
has yet been done. In answer to a formal query in 
April, 1913, the Department of State replied that 
the matter was "still the subject of diplomatic 
correspondence which it is hoped will have a satis- 
factory termination". 

Americans on the Zone are depressed over the 
seeming lack of vigor on the part of the home 
government. They say that the apparent immunity 
enjoyed by the assailants of the marines has only 
enhanced the contemptuous hatred of the natives 
for the Americans. "Let them step on our side of 
the line", says the swashbuckling native with a chip 
on his shordder, "and we'll show 'em". Among the 
Americans on the Zone there is almost universal 
regret that the troops were not marched into Panama 
on the day of the riot. Authority existed under the 
treaty with the Republic of Panama. The troops 
were ready. The lesson need not have been a severe 
one, but it was deserved and would have been lasting. 
Furthermore those best equipped to judge say that 
the event is only deferred, not averted. . "Spig- 
gotty" and "Gringo" will not continue long to 
make faces over an imaginary line without a clash. 

Despite the feeling against the Americans, all 
classes of Panamanians must admit receiving t a 
certain amount of advantage from the activities of 
the Canal builders. Moreover the $10,000,000 paid 



over by the United States for the Canal Zone has 
not been squandered, nor has it been dissipated in 
graft. We are inclined to laugh because one of 
the first uses to which it was put was to build a J 




SANTA ANA CHURCH, 1 764 



238 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Fhoto oy Und^wood & Underuoud 



THE PANAMA NATIONAL INSTITUTE 
In the background is the Canal administration building and the residence of Col. Gorgas 



government theater, which is opened scarce thirty 
days out of the year. But it is fair to take the 
Latin temperament into consideration. There is 
no Latin-American republic so impoverished as not 
to have a theater built by the public. The Re- 
public of Panama, created overnight, found itself 
without any public buildings whatsoever, barring 
the jail. Obviously a national capitol was the first 
need and it was speedily supplied. If one wing 
was used to house a theater that was a matter for 
local consideration and not one for cold-blooded 
Yankees to jeer about. The Republic itself was a 
little theatrical, rather reminiscent of the papier- 
mache creations of the stage carpenter, and might 
be expected to vanish like a transformation scene. 
At any rate with the money in hand the Panaman- 



ians built a very creditable government building, 
including a National Theater, and an imposing 
building for the National Institute as well. They 
might have done worse. It showed that the revolu- 
tion was more of a business affair than most Central- 
American enterprises of that sort. The average 
leader of so successful an enterprise would have con- 
cealed the greater part of the booty in a Paris bank 
account to his own order, and used the rest in building 
up an army for his own maintenance in power. 
Panama has her needed public buildings — let us 
wink at the theater — and $7,500,000 invested in 
New York against a time of need. 

The three government buildings in the City of 
Panama are all creditable architecturally, and from 
a superficial standpoint structurally as well. When- . 



THE PUBLIC BUILDINGS OF PANAMA 



239 



ever you are shown a piece of gov- 
ernment work in a Latin-Ameri- 
can country your guide always 
whispers "graft" — as for that 
matter is the practice in New 
York as well. But Panama seems 
to have received the worth of its 
money. The Government Palace, 
which corresponds to our national 
capital, stands facing a little plaza 
open toward the sea. It is nearly 
square, 180 by 150 feet, surround- 
ing a tasteful court or patio after 
the South American manner. 
Built of rubble masonry it is faced 
with white cement, and is of a 
singularly simple and effective 
architectural style for a Latin- 
American edifice. The building houses the Assem- 
bly Hall, the Government Theater and the public 
offices. The interior of the theater, which seats 
about 1000, is rather in the European than the 
North American style with a full tier of boxes, large 
foyers decorated with paintings by Panama artists, 
and all the appurtenances of a well-appointed 
opera house. 

Next to the Government Palace the most am- 
bitious public building in Panama is the home of 





THE MUNICIPAL BUILDING 



THK NATIONAL PALATi: AND THEATER 

the National Institute, or University, v/hich nestles 
at the foot of Ancon Hill. This is a group of seven 
buildings surrounding a central court. The Insti- 
tute is designed in time to become a true university, 
but its accommodations are at present far in advance 
of its needs. Equipped with an excellent faculty 
it will for some time to come — it was opened only 
in 191 1 — suffer from a lack of pupils, because the 
public schools in the Republic are not yet fitted to 
equip pupils for a university course. The popula- 
tion of Panama is largely illiterate. The census in 
191 1 showed 60,491 children of school age, and only 
18,607 enrolled in schools of all classes. Of those 
more than 16,000 were enrolled in the primary 
schools. The Government however is doing all it 
can to encourage education among the masses, and 
the National Institute will offer to all who fit them- 
selves to enter its classes not only free tuition, but 
free board and lodging as well. 

The third considerable public building in Panama 
is the Municipal Building which stands at one corner 
of the Cathedral Plaza. It contains, beside the 
council chamber and usual offices, the Columbus 
Library of about 2500 books, including many rare 
volumes on the ancient history of the Isthmian land 
and its people. 

To return however to the physical aspects of the 
City of Panama. It is recorded of a certain King 
of Spain that when certain bills for the fortification 
of Panama City were presented to him he gazed 



240 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Fiioiu hu Oau^t 

SALIENT^ ANGLE _ OF . LANDWARD WALL 

into vacancy with the rapt eyes of one seeing visions. 

"Methinks I behold those walls from here", 
quoth he to the suppliant treasurer, "they must be 
so prodigious"! 

Indeed what remains of the walls of Panama is 
impressive to American eyes that, accustomed to 
the peace and newness of our own towns, always 
rejoice in seeing the relics of the time when every 
city was a walled camp. Ruins and the remnants 
of by-gone days of battle are now and will become 
increasingly objects of human interest. For in the 
centuries to come our present edifices of iron 
sheathed with slabs of stone or brick will disintegrate 
into rust and clay, while as for the scenes of our most 
glorious battles they remain even today as barely 
discernible lines of earthworks. 
Gone is the day of turreted cas- 
tles, frowning walls, bastions, 
ravelins and donjon keeps. 

It is little wonder that even the 
remnants of Panama's wall are 
impressive. The new city was de- 
creed by the Queen of Spain in 
1672, or about a year after Mor- 
gan had despoiled and destroyed 
Old Panama. The site was chosen 
largely because of the opportu- 
nity it afforded for defense, and 
the good Bishop had scarcely se- 
lected the site for the Cathedral 
when the military officials began 
staking out the line of the walls. 



Though almost 250 years have since passed a great 
part of these fortifications is still intact, and the 
plan of the whole is still easily traceable amid the 
narrow streets of the crowded little city. Most 
notable of the sections still standing is the sea wall, 
sometimes called Las Bovedas, from which on the 
one hand one looks down on the inmates of the 
flowery little Chiriqui Prison, and on the other out 
to sea — past the shallow harbor with its army of 
pelicans, past the tossing little native fishing and 
market boats, past the long Balboa fill where the 
Canal builders have thrown a mountain into the sea 
and made a vast plain, and so on to the three little 
islands, rising craggy from the ocean where the 
Great Republic of the North is mounting the cannon 
that shall guard the entrance of the Canal from 
any invader. Very different from the old Spanish 
fort of the 17th century are these military works 
of the 20th and not nearly so picturesque. Such as 
they are must be left to the imagination, for the 
military authorities rigidly bar the camera from the 
post. 

The original city stood on a peninsula, and three 
sides of this were bounded by the sea wall, rising 
from about high water mark to a height of from 
twenty to thirty feet. About half way between 
the present plazas of the Cathedral and Santa Ana 
the wall turned inward with a great frowning bastion 
at each corner and crossed the Isthmus. A moat 
was dug on its landward side, shutting off all com- 
munication with the mainland save over the draw- 




I'holu by Gav.^iZ 



BOYS SKATING ON SEA WALL 



THE STOUT WALLS OF PANAMA CITY 



241 



bridge and through the sally-port on the line of 
the Avenida Centrale. With drawbridge up and 
sally-port closed the old town was effectually shut 
off from attack by land, while its guns on the land- 
ward wall effectually commanded the broad plain 



grassy, and broad enough for a tennis court full 
thirty feet above the level of the town. The con- 
struction was not unlike that of the center walls 
of the locks designed by the best American engineers. 
Two parallel walls of masonry were built, about 




VAULTS IN THE PANAMA CEMETERY 



The small sepulchres are rented for a specified time, usually three years. Unless the lease is then renewed the bones of the tenant are 

cast out into a common pile. 



on which now stands the upper part of the town, and 
the declivities of Ancon Hill where now are the 
buildings of the Zone hospital and the Tivoli Hotel. 
A good bit of construction and of military en- 
gineering was the wall of Panama — our own engineers 
on the Canal have done no better. Round the corner 
from La Mercedes Church a salient bastion crops 
out among fragile frame tenements and jerry-built 
structures. The angle is as sharp as though the 
storms of two and a half centuries had not broken 
over it. Climb it and you will find the top. level, 



forty to fifty feet apart and the space between filled 
in with dirt, packed solidly. On this part of the 
wall were no bomb proofs, chambers or dungeons. 
The guns were mounted en barbette, on the very 
top of the wall and discharged through embrasures 
in the parapet. Rather let it be said that they were 
to have been fired, for the new Panama was built 
after the plague of the pirates had passed and the 
bane of the buccaneers was abated. No foe ever 
assaulted the city from its landward side. In the 
frequent revolutions the contending parties were 



242 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




RUINS OF SAN DOMINGO CHURCH 

already within the town and did their fighting in 
its streets, the old walls serving no more useful 
purpose than the ropes which define a prize ring. 
Only the sea-wall has heard the thunder of cannon 
in deadly conflict. There during the brief revolu- 
tion which gave the United States the whip hand in 
Panama a Colombian gunboat did indeed make a 
pretense of shelling the city, but was driven away 
by machine guns mounted on the wall. 

Within the walls, or the portion of the town the 
walls once surrounded, live the older families of 
native Panamanians, or those of foreign birth who 
have lived so long upon the Isthmus as to become 
identified with its life. The edifices along the streets 
are more substantial, the shops more dignified than 
in the newer quarter without. There are few, if 
any, frame structures and these evidently patched 
in where some fire has swept away more substantial 
predecessors. This part of Panama is reminiscent 
of many small towns of Spain or Portugal. . The 
galleries nod at each other across streets too narrow 
to admit the burning sun, or to permit the passage 
of more than one vehicle at a time. The older 
churches, or their ruins, diversify the city streets, 
and the Cathedral Plaza in the very center with 



the great open cafe of the his- 
toric Hotel Centrale at one 
side has a distinctly foreign 
flavor. Here as one sits in 
the open listening to the na- 
tive band and sipping a drink 
— softer, if one be wise, than 
that the natives thrive upon 
— and watches the native girls 
of every shade and in gayest 
dress driving or loitering past, 
one feels far from the bustling 
North American world, far 
from that snap and ginger and' 
hustle on which Americans 
pride themselves. And then 
perhaps the music is suddenly 
punctuated by heavy dull 
"booms", like a distant can- 
nonade, and one knows that 
only a few miles away dyna- 
mite is rending rock and man is 
grappling fiercely with nature. 
Carnival occupies the four days preceding Ash 
Wednesday, the period known in all Catholic 
countries as the Mardi Gras. For years its gaiety 
has been preceded by a vigorous political contest for 
the high honor of being Queen of the Carnival, 
though it is said that in later years this rivalry has 
been less determined than of yore. At one time, 
however, it was contended for as strenuously as 
though the presidency of the republic was at stake 
and the two political parties — liberal and conserva- 
tive — made it as much a stake of political activity 
as though the destiny of the State was involved. 
Happy the young woman who had a father able 
and willing to foot the bills, for no corrupt practices 
act intervened to save candidates from the wiles of 
the campaign grafter, or to guard the integrity of 
the voter from the insidious temptations of the 
man with a barrel. 

It would be chivalric to say that the one issue in 
the campaign is the beauty of the respective candi- 
dates, but alas for a mercenary age! The sordid 
spirit of commercialism has crept in and the Pana- 
manian papa must look upon the ambitions of his 
beauteous daughter as almost as expensive as a 
six cylinder automobile, a trip to Europe, or a 



SCENES OF THE MARDI GRAS CARNIVAL 



243 




SOME CARNIVAL FLOATS 
In the car shown in the upper right-hand corner is the Queen of the Carnival ot 1913 



244 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




THE A^■CIENT CATHEDRAL 
Its towers have looked down on carnival, revolution, revelry and riot 

the spirit. Our floats are more artistic and expensive, 
our decorations are more lavish, but we sit and view 
the parade with detached calmness as though the 
revelers were hired clowns. In Panama everybody 
joins in the sport. The line of carriages around the 
parls in the Plaza Centrale, thence by the Avenida 
to the Plaza Santa Ana and back is unbroken. 
The confetti falls like a January snow and the 
streets are ankle deep. Everyone is in mask and 
you can never tell whether the languishing eyes 
peering out upon you are set in a face of pearl or 



of ebony. The noise of in- 
numerable horns and rattles 
rises to Heaven and rever- 
berates in the narrow streets, 
while the bells jangle out of 
tune, as is their custom. Oh, 
those bells of Panama ! Never 
were so many peals and 
chimes out of harmony. Sted- 
man, who heard them only in 
an ordinary moment, not in 
their Mardi Gras madness, 
put them to verse thus: 

"Loudly the cracked bells over- 
head 
Of San Francisco ding 
With Santa Ana, La Merced, 

Felipe answering. 
Banged all at once, and four 

times fotir 
Mom, noon and night the more 

and more, 
Clatter and clang with huge up- 
roar. 
The bells of Panama". 

Senoritas of sundry shades 
look down sweetly from the 
balconies, and shower con- 
fetti on gallant caballeros who 
stalk along as giant chanti- 
cleers, or strive to entangle in 
parti-colored tapes the lances 
of a gay party of toreadors. ' 
At night some of the women 
enmesh giant fireflies in their 
raven locks with flashing ef- 
fect. King License rules su- 
preme, and some of the horse- 
play . even in the brightly 
lighted cafes of the Centrale and Metropolitan rather 
transcends the limits of coldly descriptive prose. 
The natives will tell you that the Cathedral Plaza 
is the center of propriety; the Plaza Santa Ana a 
trifle risque. After observation and a return at 
daybreak from the carnival balls held at the Cen- 
trale and Metropolitan Hotels you can meditate 
at your leisure upon the precise significance of the 
word propriety in Panama at Mardi Gras. 

The • clause in the treaty which grants to the 
United States authority to maintain order in the 



COCK-FIGHTING AND THE LIQUOR TRADE 



245 




I'lwto by Under wood ix unui.ru.ood 

THE POLICE STATION, PANAMA 

Republic might very readily be stretched to include 
police power over Panama. This has not been done 
however and the city has its own police force, an 
exceedingly numerous one for a town of its size. 
Undoubtedly, however, diplomatic representations 
from the United States have caused the Panamanians 
to put their police regulations somewhat in accord 
with North American ideas. There are no more 
bull fights — "We never had very good bull-fights 
anyway", said a Panama gentleman plaintively 
acquiescing in this reform. Cock-fights however 
flourish and form, with the lottery drawing, the 
chief Sunday diversion. A pretty 
dismal spectacle it is, too, with two 
attenuated birds, often covered 
with blood and half sightless, 
striking fiercely at each other 
with long steel spurs, while a 
crowd of a hundred or so, blacks 
and whites, indiscriminately yell 
encouragement and shriek for 
bets from the surrounding arena. 
The betting in fact is the real sup- 
port of the game. The Jamaicans 
particularly have their favorite 
cocks and will wager a week's pay 
on their favorites and all of their 
wives' laundry earnings they can 
lay hands upon as well. One or 
two gamecocks tethered by the 
leg are as common a sight about a 
Jamaican's hut as "houn' dawgs" 
around a Missouri cabin. 



If there is any regulation of the liquor 
trafific in Panama, it is not apparent to 
the casual observer. Nowhere does one 
see so much drinking, and nowhere that 
people drink at all is there less drunken- 
ness. It is a curious fact that these two 
phenomena — wide-open drinking places 
and little drunkenness — are often found 
together. In Panama the saloons are 
legion, and I regret to say the biggest of 
them are run by Americans. No screens 
obstruct a full view of the interiors, and 
hardened tipplers flaunt their vice in the 
faces of all beholders. Perhaps the very 
publicity impels them to quit before they 
are hopelessly befuddled. Possibly the moist and 
somewhat debilitating climate permits the innocuous 
use of stimulants to a greater extent than would 
be possible in the North. Beside the absence, of 
any scandalous open drunkenness there seems to 
be some significance in the fact that the records 
of the Zone hospitals show a surprisingly small 
number of deaths from diseases induced by chronic 
alcoholism. But the casual observer strolling on 
Avenida Centrale, or along the streets tributary 
to it, might be excused for thinking Panama one 
great grog shop. It is curious, too, that despite 




CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF MERCY (LA MERCED) 



246 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




YOUNG AMERICA ON PANAMA BEACH 

the Latin character of the populace the taste for 
Hght wines, in which some see the hope of national 
temperance, does not seem general. Whisky, brandy • 
and rum are the regular tipples. On a still re- 
membered night in Panama, before the American 
invasion, the Centrale Hotel bar was made free to 
all. No drinks were served to the thirsty, but to 
all who appeared a bottle was given and the line 
marched past for some hours. Yet, even at that, 
there was no considerable drunkenness observed. 
Apparently for the Panamanians drink is not a 
hopeless evil, but to the soldiers and marines of 
the United States stationed on the Isthmus and 
denied the rational social life of a well-regulated 
canteen the open doors of the saloons of Panama 
are as the open doors to a hotter spot. Their more 
strenuous temperaments will not stand the stimulant 
which leaves a Panamanian as stolid as before. 
The fatal riot of July 4, 1912, is one illustration of 
what Panama saloon hospitality may do with the 
men who wear the khaki. 

Shopping in Panama is a decidedly cosmopolitan 
enterprise. The shopkeeper of whom I bought a 
Panama hat, made in Ecuador, did business under 
a Spanish name, was in fact a Genoese and when 
he found I could speak neither Spanish nor Italian 
coaxed me up to his price in French. Most of the 
retail prices are of so elastic a sort that when you 
have beaten them^ down two-thirds you retire with 
your package perfectly confident that they would 
have stood another cut. Nevertheless the Chinese 



merchants, who are the chief 
retail dealers in the tropics, 
compel respect. They live 
cleanly, are capable business 
men, show none of the sloth 
and indifference of the na- 
tives, and seem to prosper 
everywhere. The Chinese 
market gardens in the out- 
skirts of Panama are a posi- 
tive relief for the neatness of 
their trim rows of timely 
plants. The Panamanian 
eats yams and grumbles that 
the soil will grow nothing else ; 
the Chinaman makes it pro- 
duce practically all the vege- 
tables that grow in our northern gardens. 

Avenida Centrale ends its arterial course at the 
sea wall of the city, or at least at that part of the 
sea wall which is the best preserved and retains 
most of its old-time dignity. It is here something 
like the Battery at Charleston, S. C, though the 
houses fringing it are not of a like stateliness, and 
the aristocracy of the quarter is somewhat tempered 
by the fact that here, too, is the city prison. Into 
the court- 
yards of this 
calaboose 
you can gaze 
from sundry 
little sentry 
boxes, the 
little sentries 
in which 
seem ever 
ready to step 
out to let 
the tourist 
step in and 
afterward 
pose for his 
camera, with 
rifle, fixed 
bayonet and 
an even more 
fixed expres- 
sion. The READY TO CONTROL THE PACIFIC 




IN THE ANCIENT CHIRIQUI PRISON 



247 



greater part of one of the prison yards is given over 
to flower beds, and though sunken some twenty feet 
or more below the crest of the wall, is thoughtfully 
provided with such half-way stations in the way of 
lean-to sheds, ladders and water butts that there 
seems to be no reason why any prisoner should stay 
in who wants to get out. But perhaps they don't 
often yearn for liberty. A wire fence cuts off the 
woman's section of the jail and the several native 
women I observed flirting assiduously with desperate 
male malefactors from whom they were separated 
only by this fence, seemed content with their lot, 
and evidently helped to cultivate like resignation in 
the breasts of their dark adorers. A white-clad 
guard, machete at side and heavy pistol at belt, 
walks among them jingling a heavy bunch of keys 
authoritatively but offering no interruption to their 
tender interludes. 

On the other side of the row of frame quarters 
by which the prison yard is bisected you can see 
at the normal hours the prisoners taking their 
meals at a long table in the open air. Over the 
parapet of the sea wall above, an equally long row 
of tourists is generally leveling cameras, and some- 
times exchanging lively badinage with some criminal 



who objects to figuring in this amateur rogues' gallery. 
To the casual spectator it all savors of opera bouffe, 
but there are stories a-plenty that the Panama jail 
has had its share of brutal cruelty as have most 
places wherein men are locked away from sight and 
subject to the whims of others not so very much 
their superiors. Once the Chiriqui Prison was 
a fortress, the bank of quarters for the prisoners 
formed the barracks, and the deep archways under 
the sea wall were dungeons oft populated by political 
prisoners. Miasma, damp and the brutality of 
jailers have many a time brought to occupants of 
those dungeons their final discharge, and a patch 
of wall near by, with the bricks significantly chipped, 
is pointed out as the place where others have been 
from time to time stood up in front of a firing squad 
at too short a range for misses. The Latin-American 
lust for blood has had its manifestations in Panama, 
and the old prison has doubtless housed its share 
of martyrs. 

But one thinks little of the grimmer history of 
the Chiriqui Prison, looking down upon the bright 
flower beds, and the gay quadroon girls flirting with 
some desperate character who is perhaps "in" for 
a too liberal indulgence in rum last pay day. Indeed ' 




THE FLOWERY CHIRIQUI PRISON 
Where native women prisoners may flirt without interruption with male malefactors, separated only by a wire fence 



248 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




i'hoLo Oil Uiidirwood tfe Underwood 

THE MARKET FOR SHELL FISH 
The black spots on the roof are vultures, the official scavengers 

the guard wards off more sanguinary reminiscences 
by telling you that they used to hold bull baitings — 
a milder form of bull-fight — in the yard that the 
captives in the dungeons might witness the sport, 
and perhaps envy the bull, quien sabe? 

The present town of Panama does not impress one 
with the air of being the scene of dark crimes 
of covetousness, lust and hate. Its police system, 
viewed superficially, is effective and most of the 
malefactors in the Chiriqui Jail are there for trivial 
offenses only. One crime of a few years ago however 
bids fair to become historic. One of the banks in 
the town was well known to be the repository of 



the funds needed for the payroll 
of the Canal force. It was the 
policy of the Commission to pay 
off as much as possible in gold 
and silver, and to a very great 
extent in coins of comparatively 
small denomination in order to 
keep it on the Zone. The money 
paid out on pay drafts comes 
swiftly back through the Com- 
missary to the banks which ac- 
cordingly accumulate a very con- 
siderable stock of ready cash as a 
subsequent pay day approaches. 
Now the banks of Panama do not 
seem to even the casual observer 
as strongholds, and probably to 
the professional cracksman they 
are positive invitations to enter- 
prise. Accordingly, three men, 
only one of whom had any crim- 
inal record or was in any sense an 
habitue of the underworld, set 
about breaking into one of the 
principal banks. They laid their 
plans with deliberation and con- 
ducted their operations with due 
regard for their personal comfort. 
Their plan was to tunnel into the 
bank from an adjoining building, 
in vv^hich they set up a bogus con- 
tracting business to account for 
the odds and ends of machinery 
and implements they had about. 
The tunnel being dark they strung 
electric lights in it. Being hot, under that tropic 
air, they installed electric fans. All the comforts 
of a burglar's home were there. 

From a strictly professional standpoint they made 
not a single blunder. Their one error — almost a 
fatal one — was in not being good churchmen. For 
they had planned to enter the bank late on a Satur- 
day night. Tuesday was to be pay day and on 
Monday the full amount of the pay roll would be 
drawn out. But Saturday night it would all be there 
— several himdred thousand dollars — and they would 
have all day Sunday to pack it securely and make 
their getaway. Midnight, then, saw them creeping 



THE MANY CHURCHES OF PANAMA 



249 



*v 







run-away child Panama, and no extradition treaty 
could have been appealed to by the Panamanians 
against their despoilers. As it was they quarreled 
over the booty. One of the three was killed; the 
other two were arrested for the murder, but soon 
went free. Their complete immunity from prose- 
cution calls attention to the fact that a few hours' 
trip in a motor boat will take any one guilty of 
crime in Panama to a land where he will be wholly 
free from punishment. 

Churches in Panama, or the ruins of them, are 



THE CATHEDRAL AND PLAZA 



into the bank. The safe yielded readily to their 
assaults, but it disgorged only a beggarly $30,000 
or so. What could be the trouble? Just then the 
knowledge dawned on the disappointed bandits 
that Monday was a Saint's day, the bank would be 
closed, therefore the prudent Zone paymaster had 
drawn his funds on Saturday. The joke was on the 
cracksmen. 

With the comparatively few thousands they had 
accumulated the disappointed outlaws took a motor 
boat and made for Colombia. Had they secured 
the loot they expected they would have been made 
welcome there, for Colombia does not recognize her 



many, and while not beautiful are interesting. 
Everybody goes to see the famous flat arch of the 
San Domingo Church, and its disappearance will be 
a sore blow to guides and post-card dealers. Aside 
from its curious architectural quality the arch 
derives interest from a legend of its construction 
by a pious monk. Twice it fell before the mortar 
had time to set. The third time its designer brought 
a stool and sat himself down below the heavy key- 



stone. "If it falls", he said, "I go with it' 



But 



that time the arch stood firm, and it has withstood 
the assaults of centuries to come at last to the 
ignoble end of incorporation in a tenement house. 



250 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




IN A PANAMA PARK 

The arch, which certainly looks unstable, is often 
pointed to as an evidence of the slight peril on the 
Isthmus from earthquake shocks. Such convulsions 
of nature are indeed not unknown but are usually 
feeble. That great shock that overthrew San Fran- 
cisco was not even reg- 
istered by the seismo- 
graph on the Canal zone. 

Practically all the 
churches are of the 
same plan — two towers 
at the front corners with 
the fagade built be- 
tween. The towers of 
the Cathedral rise high 
above the roof and the 
tapering steeples are 
covered with slabs of mother-of-pearl, which make 
a brave spectacle from the bay when the rosy rays 
of the setting sun play upon them. Within all the 
churches are poor and barren of ornament. They 
have been stripped of their funds by various author- 
ities beginning with Spain itself, one of the Spanish 
generals in the revolutionary days having seized 
all the available funds to pay for transportation for 
his army. Perhaps the church resented this, for in 
later days it voluntarily contributed largely out of 
its remaining treasure to the revolutionary cause. 
Later still its gold and silver ornaments and altar 
pieces were confiscated by some faction temporarily 
in power. Indeed the church has been the football 
of politics, always entangled with the State and 
thus far suffering in prestige and pocket by the 
association. 

The Cathedral owes its completion to a negro 




bishop, the son of a charcoal burner who had de- 
termined that his boy should rise to higher station. 
By hard study the lad secured admittance to the 
priesthood and ultimately rose to be Bishop of 
Panama, the first native to fill that post. Out of 
his own salary he paid much of the cost of building 
the great church, the corner-stone of which had been 
laid when the city was founded, and by his zeal in 
soliciting funds secured its completion. 

A systematic tour of the churches of Panama is 
well worth the visitor's time. More that is curious 
will be found than there is of the beautiful, and to 
the former class I am inclined to consign a much 
begrimed painting in the Cathedral which tradition 
declares to be a Murillo. Perhaps more interesting 
than the Cathedral is the Church of San Francisco, 
in the Plaza Bolivar. The present structure dates 
back only to 1785, two former edifices on the same 

site having been 
burned. The ruins of the 
beautiful cloister of the 
Franciscan convent ad- 
join it, but are concealed 
from view by an unsight- 
ly board fence which the 
tourist, not having a 
guide, will not think of 
passing through. The 
ruins, however, are well 
worth seeing. 
Clubs share with churches in the social life of 
Panama. Perhaps indeed they rather outshine the 
latter. At any rate such buildings as the Union 
Club and the University Club, both of which abut 
upon the bay would be a credit to a city twice the 



SALVATION ARMY IN PANAMA 




COSTUME DE RIGUEUR FOR FEBRUARY 



PANAMA CLUBS AND OPEN AIR LIFE 



251 



size. The former club, as its name implies, was did not end with the French. Even in the prosaic 

intended to be a meeting place where liberals and Yankee days of the last carnival the intervention 

conservatives could lay aside political differences of the police was necessary to prevent a gentleman 

in social unity. However, politics in Panama, as in from being wholly denuded, and displayed to the 

all places where there are not real vital issues dividing revelers in nature's garb as a specimen of the 



the parties, breeds 
bitter personal feel- 
ing and the Union 
Club is said to be 
far from being the 
home of political 
unity. It has, how- 
ever, an excellent 
building, with a 
spacious ball-room, 
a swimming tank 
and a magnificent 
view of Panama 
Bay with its pic- 
turesque islands. 
The University 
Club is more an 
American club 
than a Panaman- 
ian, and it no 
longer observes 
the restriction as 
to membership 
which its name 
would imply. It 
too has a spacious 
ball-room and is a 
social center for 
the Zone dwellers 
who form the 
major part of its 
membership. 

The Cathedral 
Plaza is socially 
the center of 

town, though geographically the old French Plaza 
of Santa Ana is more near the center. Directly 
opposite the Cathedral is the Hotel Centrale, built 
after the Spanish fashion, with four stories around 
a central court. In the blither days of the French 
regime this court was the scene of a revelry to 
which the daily death roll formed a grim contrast. 
However the occasional gaiety of the Centrale Patio 




Photo iy Underwood tfc Underwood 

BUST OF LIEUT. NAPOLEON B. WYSE 

This bust stands on the sea wall. The picture shows it guarded by a United 
States soldier and a Panama policeman 



superior products 
of Panama. 

On a nearby 
comer of the Plaza 
is the old French 
administration 
building, after- 
ward occupied by 
the Isthmian 
Canal Commission . 
In 1905 it was a 
central point of in- 
fection for the yel- 
low-fever epidemic, 
and though re- 
peatedly fumigated 
was finally aban- 
doned by the 
American engineers 
who moved their 
headquarters out 
to Culebra. 

Life in Panama 
City is mainly out- 
door life, in the 
dry season at any 
rate, and even in 
the wet season the 
Panamanians 
move about in the 
open like a lot of 
damp and discon- 
tented flies. The 
almost continuous 
line of balconies 
shields the sidewalks from the rain, and nobody in 
Panama is too busy to stop a half hour or so at 
street crossings for the downpour to lessen. Sunday 
nights the band of the Republic plays in the Plaza, 
and there all the people of the town congregate to 
listen to the music, promenade and chat. It is the 
scene of that curious Latin-American courtship 
which consists of following the adored one with 



252 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



appealing eyes, but never 
by any possibility speak- 
ing to her. The proces- 
sion of girls and women 
is worth watching, 
whether the eyes be ador- 
ing or not, and the cos- 
tumes have a sort of 
strangeness befitting the 
scene. The practice has 
grown up of leaving the 
outer walk for the negro 
and negroid people, the 
inner paths being kept 
for the whites — but as 
the walks merge into 
each other so too do the 

colors. If one wearies of the moving crowds without, 
a step will bring him into the patio of the Hotel 
Centrale where an excellent orchestra plays, and a 
gathering chiefly native sips tropical drinks and 
disposes of the political issues of the day with much 
oratory and gesticulation. 

As you make your way back to the hotel at night 
— if it is after eleven, the driver will lawfully charge 
you twenty cents — you will vainly try to recall any 
North American town of 40,000 people which can 
present so many objects of interests to the visitor, 




ON PANAMA S BATHING BEACH 



lent as Wall Street after 
dark. But in a more 
sequestered section of the 
town, where the public 
hospital looks down sig- 
nificantly on the spec- 
tacle from one side, and 
the cemeteries show sin- 
ister on the other, re- 
velry goes on apace until 
the cool dawn arises. 
There the clatter of pia- 
nolas which have felt 
the climate sorely mingles 
with the clink of glasses 
in cantinas that never 
close, and the laughter 
of lips to which, in public at least, laughter is a 
professional necessity. Under the red lights at 
midnight Panama shows its worst. Men of varied 
voyages, familiar with the slums of Singapore and 
the purlieus of Paris declare that this little city 
of a hybrid civilization outdoes them in all that 
makes up the fevered life of the underworld. Scarce- 
ly a minute's walk away is the American town, quiet 
and restful under the tropic moon, its winding streets 
well guarded by the Zone police, its houses wrapped 
in vines and fragrant with fiowers all dark in the 



i^^san^ 




Photo by Underwood <& Underwood 



QUARANTINE STATION AT PACIFIC ENTRANCE TO CANAL 



and a spectacle of social life so varied, so cosmo- 
politan and so pleasing. 

The night life of the streets is as a rule placid, 
however, rather than boisterous, nor is Panama an 
"all night town". The rule of the tropics is "early 
to rise" in any event and as a result those parts of 
the city which the visitor sees usually quiet down 
by midnight and presently thereafter the regions 
about the Cathedral Plaza are as quiet and somno- 



hours of repose. But in the congested tangle of 
concrete houses between the hospitals and the 
cemetery madness and mirth reign, brains reel with 
the fumes of the strange drinks of the, tropics, and 
life is worth a passing pleasure — nothing more. Men 
of many lands have cursed the Chagres fever and the 
jungle's ills, but the pest place of Panama has been 
subjected to no purging process with all the efforts 
of the United States to banish evil from the Isthmus. 



CHAPTER XIV 



THE SANITATION OF THE ZONE 




HE seal of the Canal Zone shows a 
galleon under full sail passing be- 
tween the towering banks of the 
Culebra Cut, with the motto, "The 
land divided; the world united". 
Sometimes as I trudged about the 
streets of Colon or 
Panama, or over the 
hills and through the 
jungle in the Zone, 
I have thought a 



The demonstrated fact that yellow fever is 
transmitted only by the bite of a slegomyia mosquito 
which has already bitten, and been infected by, a 
human being sick of the fever has become one of 
the commonplaces of sanitary science. Yet that 
knowledge dates back comparatively few years, and 



more significant coat-of-arms might 
be made up of a garbage can ram- 
pant and a gigantic mosquito mor- 
dant — for verily by the collection 
and careful covering of filth and 
the slaughter of the pestilential mos- 
quito all the work done on the Zone 
has been made possible. As for the 
motto how would this do — "A clean 
country and a salubrious strait"? 

It is the universal opinion of those 
familiar with the Canal work that if 
we had approached the task with the 
lack of sanitary knowledge from 
which the French suffered we should 
have failed as they did. No evil 
known to man inspires such dread as 
yellow fever. Leprosy, in the indi- 
vidual, does indeed, although well- 
informed people know that it is not 
readily communicated and never be- 
comes epidemic. Cholera did strike 
the heart of man with cold dread, but 
more than one generation has passed 
since cholera was an evil to be reck- 
oned with in civilized countries. 
Yellow fever is now to be classed 
with it as an epidemic disease, the 
spread of which can be absolutely 
and unerringly controlled. 




Pholo by Undencood & Underwood 

COL. W. C. GORGAS 

The man who changed the Isthmus from a pest-hole to a spot as fit for human 

habitation as any place on the globe 

253 



254 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




WHAT COL. GORGAS HAD TO CORRECT 

was not available to mankind at the time the French 
began their struggle with tropical nature. Over the 
honor of first discovering the fact of the malignant 
part played by the mosquito there has been some 
conflict, but credit is generally given to Dr. Donald 
Ross, a Scotchman in the Indian Civil Service. 
His investigations however were greatly extended 
and practical effect was given them by surgeons in 
the United States Army engaged in the work of 
eliminating pestilence from Havana. To Majors Wal- 
ter Reed, Jesse W. Lazear and James Carroll the chief 
credit is due for testing, proving and applying the 
theory in Havana. Lazear bravely gave up his life 
to the experiment, baring his arm to the bite 
of L. mosquito, and dying afterward of yellow 
fever in terrible agony. 

The fact of this earlier ap- 
plication of the mosquito the- 
ory does not in the slightest 
degree detract from the great 
honor due to Col. W. C. 
Gorgas for his work in chang- 
ing the Isthmus of Panama 
from a pest-hole into a spot 
as fit for human habitation as 
any spot on the globe. Un- 
fortunately, as the impending 
success of the Canal enter- 



prise became apparent, rivalry for 
the prime honor grew up between 
the followers of the two chief figures, 
Col. Goethals and Col. Gorgas. That 
either of these gentlemen shared in 
this feeling is not asserted, but their 
friends divided the Isthmus into two 
hostile camps. Rivalry of this sort 
was unfortunate and needless. In 
the words of Admiral Schley after the 
battle of Santiago: "There was glory 
enough for all". But the result was 
to decry and to depreciate the work 
of Col. Gorgas in making the Isthmus 
habitable. As a matter of fact no 
historian will for one moment hesi- 
tate to state that only by that work 
was it made possible to dig the Canal 
at all. Col. Goethals himself in his 
moments of deepest doubt as to the 
size of the appropriations for sanitation purposes 
would hardly question that statement. That some 
other man than Gorgas might have done the work 
with the experience of the French and the dis- 
covery of the malignant quality of the mosquito 
to guide him is undoubtedly true. That some other 
man than Goethals might have dug the Canal with 
the experience of two earlier engineers, as well as 
of the French to serve as warnings, is equally true. 
But these two finished the work and to each belongs 
the glory for his part. 




ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, HOUSING THE SANITARY DEPARTMENT 



BEGINNING THE WARFARE ON MOSQUITOES 



255 



Col. Gorgas first visited the Isthmus in 1904. 
In a little pamphlet which I have before me he 
then described simply the essence of the problem 
he had to meet. He found camped on a hill, per- 
fectly drained and supplied with good water, 450 
marines — who of course were men of exceptionally 
good physique, robust and vigorous. Yet in four 
months 170 out of the 450 were infected with 
malaria, and Col. Gorgas said, "if these men were 
our laborers, working daily in Culebra Cut, exposed 
to the sun and weather, many of these cases would 



is partial to malaria — which had already bitten an 
infected negro. The result was the spread of the 
infection among the marines. As Col. Gorgas put 
it, "The condition is very much the same as if 
these four or five hundred natives had the smallpox 
and our marines had never been vaccinated". To 
correct this condition he proposed, "to take this 
village, put it under a systematic scheme of inspec- 
tion, whereby we will be able to con- 
trol all water barrels and deposits 
of water, so that no mosquitoes 




Pfioto bi/ Underwood <Sc Underwood 



DREDGING A COLON STREET 
So near tide level is the surface of Colon that the dredges made canals in the public streets 



be severe in type and at the end of the year we would 
be approaching the mortality of the French". The 
cause for the infection was apparent. Though the 
marines' camp was clean and sanitary there was 
at the foot of the hill, on which it was perched, a 
village of 400 or 500 Jamaica negroes. Examina- 
tion of the people showed that all suffered from 
chronic malaria. The marine strolling in the village 
would be bitten by a mosquito — the anopheles which 



will be allowed to breed, look after its street cleaning 
and disposal of night soil, etc., so as to get it in 
good sanitary condition, then have the population 
examined and recorded, so that we will have on a 
card a short history of each individual and keep track 
of them in this way. Those suffering from malaria 
will be put under treatment, and watched as long 
as the malarial parasite is found in the blood. 
I hope, in this way, to decrease to the smallest 



256 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 





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THE WAR ON MOSQUITOES. I. 
The men are oiling the surface of the streams to kill the larvae 



limit the number of anopheles, the malarial-bearing 
mosquito, and, at the same time, to gradually 
eliminate the human being as a source of infection, 
so that at the end of a year it will be entirely safe 
for an unacclimated man to live in this village". 

Being appointed Chief Sanitary Officer Col. Gorgas 
put this plan into effect not only in that village but 
in every part of the Canal Zone, particular atten- 
tion being given to the cities of Panama and Colon. 
In these cities the visitor will be impressed with 
the comparative cleanliness of the streets and side- 
walks and the covering of all garbage receptacles. 
No other Central American city shows so cleanly 
a front. Screening, however, is Httle in evidence. 
How great the mortaHty had been under the French 
it is impossible to tell. Their statistics related al- 
most wholly to deaths in their hospitals and very 
largely to white patients. Men who died out on 
the line, natives who worked a day or two and went 
back to their villages to die were left unrecorded. 
In the hospitals it was recorded that between i88i 
and 1889, 5618 employees died. The contractors 
were charged a dollar a day for every man sent to 
the hospitals, so it may be conjectured that not all 
were sent who should have been. Col. Gorgas 
estimates the average death rate at about 240 per 
1000 annually. The American general death rate 
began with a maximum of 49.94 per 1000 sinking 
to 21.18, at or about which point it has remained 
for several years. Among employees alone our 
. death rate was 7.50 per 1000. The French with 



pavement 
works and 
in cisterns 



an average force of 10,200 men em- 
ployed, lost in nine years 22,189 men. 
We with an average force of 33,000 
lost less than 4000 in about an equal 
period. 

When Col. Gorgas came to the 

Isthmus the two towns Panama and 

Colon were well fitted to be breeding 

places for pestilence. Neither had 

sewers nor any drainage system. 

The streets of Panama were paved 

after a fashion with cobblestones and 

lined with gutters through which the 

liquid refuse of the town trickled 

slowly or stood still to fester and 

grow putrescent under the glowing 

rays of the tropic sun. Colon had no 

whatsoever. Neither town had water- 

the people gathered and stored rainwater 

and pottery jars which afforded fine 




THE WAR ON MOSQUITOES. II. 
Burning the grass that affords cover 



METHODS OF THE ANTI-MOSQUITO CRUSADE 



257 



breeding places for the mosquito. As a matter of 
fact, the whole Isthmus, not the towns alone, fur- 
nishes plenty of homes for the mosquito. With a 
rainy season lasting throughout eight months in the 
year much of the soil is waterlogged. The stagnant 
back waters of small streams ; pools left by the rains ; 
the footprints of cows and other animals filled up 
with rain water quickly breed the wrigglers that 
ultimately become nlosquitoes. Mr. A. H. Jennings, 
the entomologist of the Commission, has identified 
125 varieties of the mosquito, of which, however, the 
anopheles and the stegomyia are the ones peculiarly 
obnoxious to man. The others are merely the 
common or summer resort variety of mosquito with 
a fondness for ankles and the back of one's hand, 
which can be observed any time on Long Island or 
in New Jersey without the expense of a trip to 
Panama. A careful study of literary authorities 
indicates to me that at this point in the descrip- 
tion of the mosquito plague on the Isthmus it is 
proper to indulge in humorous reflections upon the 
fact that the bite of the female only is dangerous. 
But, given the fact, the humorous applications seem 
so obvious that the reader may be trusted to draw 
them for himself — it would be idle to say "herself", 
for the women will not see anything humDrous about 
it at all. 

The fight then against disease on the Isthmus 
resolved itself largely into a war of extermination 
upon the two noxious varieties of mosquitoes. It 

involved first a cleaning 
up, paving and draining 
of the two towns. Curi- 
ously enough bad smells 
are not necessarily un- 
hygienic, but they beto- 





Photo by Underwood & Underwood 

THE WAE ON MOSQUITOES. IV. 

Cutting down brush which will later be burned thus destroying mosquito covert 



THE WAR ON MOSQUITOES. III. 
Spraying the brooks with larvacide 

ken the existence of matter that breeds disease 
germs, and flies and ■ other insects distribute those 
germs where they will do the most harm. Colon and 
Panama therefore were paved and provided with 
sewage systems, while somewhat stringent ordi- 
nances checked the pleasant Panama practice of 
emptying all slops from the front gallery into the 

street. It is fair to the Pana- 
manians to note that in the 
end they will pay for the vig- 
orous cleaning and refurbish- 
ing of their towns by the 
Americans. Our sanitary 
forces did the work and did 
it well, by virtue of the clause 
in the treaty which grants the 
United States authority to 
prosecute such work in the 
two cities and collect from 



258 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Photo bu Unacrwood & i/Tulerwood 



SANITARY WORK IN A VILLAGE 
The scene is in the outskirts of Culebra, now a model of cleanliness 



the householder its cost by means of water and 
sewage rates. 

This work was completed in 1908 and the final 
report of the Division of Municipal Engineering 
which conducted it showed that nearly $6,000,000 
had been expended, of which about $2,250,000 was 
for pavements, sewers and waterworks in the two 
cities, and about $3,500,000 for work in the Canal 
Zone. Nearly a million more was subsequently 
expended in the towns. 

The first thing to do with the towns was to 
fumigate them. The Panamanians did not like 
this. Neither would we or any other people for 
that matter, for the process of fumigating necessarily 
interrupts the routine of life, invades domestic 
privacy, inevitably causes some loss by the dis- 
coloring of fabrics, interrupts trade in the case of 
stores and is in general an infernal nuisance. That 
much any people will say against wholesale fumiga- 
tion. But to the Panamanians it was peculiarly 
offensive because they were immune from yellow 



fever anyway, and 
to some extent 
from malaria as 
well, so to their 
minds the whole 
thing was an im- 
position by which 
the Americans 

alone would profit. 
If the gringoes 
weren't able to live 
in Panama with- 
out smoking peo- 
ple out of house 
and home, they had 
better stay away 
was the generally 
expressed public 
opinion of Panama. 
Here the pecu- 
liar personality of 
Col. Gorgas came 
into play. Had 
that gentleman not 
been a great health 
officer he would 
have made a no- 
table diplomat, particularly in these new days when 
tact and charm of manner are considered more es- 
sential to an American diplomat than dollars. ' ' He 
went among the people of the two towns, argued, 
jollied and cajoled them until a work which it was 
thought might have to be accomplished at the point 
of the bayonet was finished with but little friction. 
The bayonet was always in the background, how- 
ever, for the treaty gives the United States unquali- 
fied authority to enforce its sanitary ordinances in 
the cities of Colon and Panama. We can send a regi- 
ment if necessary to compel a man to keep his yard 
clean — which is perhaps more than we could do in 
some benighted towns of our own United States. 

The tone of the man. in the street toward these 
American innovations is partly surly, partly jocular. 
In Panama he will show you a very considerable 
section of the town which is not yet fully rebuilt 
and insist that the fire which started it was caused 
by the "fool fumigators". There is some difference 
of opinion as to the origin of this blaze, and the 



SOME HUMORS OF THE MOSQUITO WAR 



259 



matter of damages is, as I write, in the hands of 
arbitrators, but the native opinion is solidly against 
the fumigating torch bearers. On the subject of 
the extermination of mosquitoes the native is always 
humorous. He will describe to you Col. Gorgas's 
trained bloodhounds and Old Sleuths tracking the 
criminal stegoniyia to his lair; the corps of bearers 
'of machetes and chloroform who follow to put an 
' end to the malevolent mosquito's days; the scientist 
with the high-powered microscope who examines the 
'remains and, if he finds the deceased carried germs, 
the wide search made for individuals whom he may 
have bitten that they may be segregated and put 
under proper treatment. 

In reality there is a certain humor in this scientific 
bug hunting. You are at afternoon tea with a 
hostess in one of the charming tropical houses which 
the Commission supplies to its workers. The eyes 
of your hostess suddenly become fixed in a terrified 
gaze. 

"Goodness gracious "! she exclaims, "look there"! 

"What? where"? you cry, bounding from your 





I 



THE MOSQUITO CHLOROFORMER S OUTFIT 
Used in tracking the criminal stegomyia to his lair 



Fholo by Dr. OrtnsUin 

THE MOSQUITO CHLOROFORMER AT WORK 
Once subdued by chloroform the mosquito is removed for analysis 

seat in excitement. Perhaps a blast has just 
boomed on the circumambient air and you have 
visions of a fifty-pound rock about to fly through 
the drawing-room window. Life on the Zone 
abounds in such incidents. 

"There"! dramatically. "That mosquito"! 

"I'll swat it", you cry valorously, remembering 
the slogan of "Swat the Fly" which breaks forth 
recurrently in our newspapers every spring, though 
they are quite calm and unperturbed about the places 
which breed flies faster than they can be swatted. 

"Goodness, no. I must telephone the depart- 
ment". 

Speechless with amazement you wonder if the 
police or fire department is to be called out to cope 
with this mosquito. In due time there appears an 
official equipped with an electric flash-light, a 
phial and a small bottle of chloroform. The male- 
factor — no, the suspect, for the anopheles malefactor 
does no evil despite his sinister name — is mercifully 
chloroformed and deposited in the phial for a later 
post mortem. With his flash-light the inspector 



26o 



'PANAMA' AND THE CANAL 




ANCON HOSPITAL AS RECEIVED FROM THE FRENCH 



examines all the dark places of the house to seek 
for possible accomplices, and having learned that 
nobody has been bitten takes himself off. 

It does seem a ridiculous amount of fuss about 
a mosquito, doesn't it? But since that sort of thing 
has been done on the Zone death carts no longer 
make their dismal rounds for the night's quota of 
the dead, and the ravages of malaria are no longer 
so general or so deadly as they were. 

Nowadays there are no cases of yellow fever 
developing on the Zone, but in the earlier days 
when one did occur the sanitary officials set out to 
find the cause of infection. When the French seek 
to detect a criminal they follow the maxim ' ' Cherchez 
la femme" (Look for the woman). When pursuing 
the yellow-fever germ to its source the Panama 
inspectors look for the stegomyia mosquito that bit 
the victim — which is a little reminiscent of hunting 
for a needle in a haystack. 

A drunken man picked up on the street in Panama 
was taken to the hospital and there died of yellow 
fever. He was a stranger but his hotel was looked 
up and proved to be a native house occupied only 
by immunes, so that he could not have been infected 
.there. Nobody seemed to care particularly about 



the deceased, 
who was buried 
as speedily as 
possible, but the 
Sanitary Depart- 
ment did care 
about the source 
of ^ his malady. 
Looking up his 
haunts it was dis- 
covered that he 
was much seen in 
company with an 
Italian. There- 
upon all the Ital- 
ians in town were 
interrogated; one 
declared he had 
seen the dead 
man in company 
with the man who 
tended bar at the 
theater. This 
worthy citizen was sought out and was discovered 
hiding away in a secluded lodging sick with yellow 
fever. Whereupon the theater was promptly fumi- 
gated as the center of infection. 

Clearing up and keeping clean the two centers 
of population was, however, the least of the work 
of sanitation. The whole Isthmus was a breeding 
place for the mosquitoes. Obviously every foot of 
it could not be drained clear of pools and rivulets, 
but the preventive campaign of the sanitation men 
covered scores of square miles adjacent to villages 
and the Canal bed, and was. marvelously effective 
in reducing the number of mosquitoes. Away from 
the towns the campaign was chiefly against the 
malarial mosquito — the anophelince. The yellow 
fever mosquito, the stegomyia, is a town-bred insect , 
coming from cisterns, water pitchers, tin cans, 
fountains in the parks, water-filled pans used to 
keep ants from the legs of furniture and the like. 
It' is even said to breed in the holy-water fonts of 
the multitudinous churches of Panama, and the 
sanitary officials secured the co-operation of the 
church authorities in having those receptacles kept 
fresh. The malarial mosquito however breeds in 
streams, marshes and pools and will travel sometimes 



HOW THE STREAMS ARE STERILIZED 



261 



a mile and a half from his birth-place looking for 
trouble. 

As you ride in a train across the Isthmus you 
will often see far from any human habitation a 
blackened barrel on a board crossing some little 
brook a few inches wide. If you have time to look 
carefully you will see that the edges of the gully 
through which the brook runs have been swept 
clear of grass by scythe or fire or both, and that 
the banks of the rivulet are blackened as though 
by a tar-brush while the water itself is covered 
by a black and greasy film. 

This is one of the outposts of the army of health. 
Of them there are several hundred, perhaps 
thousands, scattered through the Zone. The barrel 
is filled with a certain fluid combination of oil and 



divers chemicals called larvacide. Day and night 
with monotonous regularity it falls drop by drop 
into the rivulet, spreads over its surface and is 
deposited on the pebbles on the banks. The mos- 
quito larvae below must come to the surface to 
breathe. There they meet with the noxious fluid 
and at the first breath are slain. Automatically 
this one barrel makes that stream a charnel house 
for mosquito larvae. But up and down throughout 
the land go men with cans of the oil on their backs 
and sprinklers in their hands seeking for pools and 
stagnant puddles which they spray with the larva- 
cide. So between the war on the larva at its breed- 
ing point and the system of screening off all resi- 
dences, offices and eating places the malarial infec- 
tion has been greatly reduced. It has not been 




Photo by Underwood <fc Unacrwuu^ 



THE CANAL COMMISSION HOSPITAL AT COLON BUILT BY THE FRENCH 



262 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




FRENCH VILLAGE OF EMPIRE AFTER CLEANING UP BY AMERICANS 



ten suffer 
from o c c a- 
sional head- 
aches, anemia 
or sHght fever. 
These are the 
people most 
dangerous 
from the 
standpoint of 
the sanitarian. 
It is in the 
blood of these 
individuals 
that the ma- 
laria-causing 
parasite has at- 
tained the 
form in which, 
if taken by a 
female anophe- 
line, it devel- 
eradicated by any manner of means. The Panama ops within this mosquito into the form capable of 
cocktail (quinine) is still served with meals. In one causing malaria in the individual whom the anophe- 
year 2307.66 pounds of the drug were served out. ~ line may bite a week or so thereafter. (2) Protect- 
But if not wholly obliterated the ailment has been ing dwelling with copper wire gauze against the 
greatly checked. Dr. A. J. Orenstein, of the Depart- ingress of mosquitoes. All houses occupied by Ameri- 
ment of Sanitation, says in 
summing up the results of the 
policy : 

"The campaign against ma- 
laria was inaugurated on the 
following plan: (i) Treatment 
with adequate doses of qui- 
nine (about 30 grains a day 
for adults) of all cases of ma- 
laria. First, because this 
treatment is curative; and, 
second, because unless so 
treated, each case of malaria 
constitutes a focus from which 
malaria spreads. In malarial 
regions there are many per- 
sons who have what is often 
spoken of as chronic malaria. 
Such individuals frequently 
do not suffer any serious in- 
convenience. The}'' more of- the bay of taboga from the sanitarium 




RESULTS OF THE WAR ON MOSQUITOES 



263 




THE LITTLE PANGO BOATS COME TO MEET YOU 

cans and most of the 
others are screened. 

(3) Catching and kilHng 
mosquitoes within the 
dwellings. This is done 
by negro "mosquito 
catchers", and is of 
great value in prevent- 
ing malaria where other 
prophylactic measures 
cannot be inaugurated. 

(4) Destroying the 
breeding places of 
anophelincB by filling, 
draining, and training 
the banks of streams. (5) 
Destroying the anoph- 
elincB in the larval and 
pupal stages by oiling 
the water in which they 
are found, or applying 
a special larva poison to 
this water. (6) Clear- 
ing the rank vegetation 
in the immediate vicinity of dwellings and settle- 
ments, so as to destroy the shelter for such mosqui- 
toes as may find their way to the vicinity of the 
houses; to hasten evaporation and the drying of 
small water collections and marshy places ; to expose 
to view small breeding places and to remove the 
temptation to throw water containers into the 
vegetation. 

"These measures, conscientiously and painstak- 
ingly carried out, resulted in reducing the number of 
malaria cases treated in the hospitals from 6.83 per 
cent of the working force per month in 1906 to 1.53 




OLD CHURCH AT TABOGA 

The square box on the corner of the wall contains the mummied 

head of a favorite priest 



per cent of the working force per month in 191 1, 
and the death from malaria among employees from 
233 in 1906 to 47 in 191 i". 

"The malaria sick rate for 1906, if continued to 
191 1, would give, on the basis of the number of 
employees in 191 1, about 40,000 cases of malaria 
sick in the hospitals for the year, or a loss in labor 
of about 200,000 days of work. The total number 
of employees sick in hospitals with malaria in 191 1 
was 8946 — or a loss of 44,730 days of work. A gain 
of about 155,000 days was, therefore, made. Placing 
the loss to the Government for each day's labor, 

plus treatment, at the 
rather low figure of $3 
per man, the gain in 
this one item of saving 
more than offset the 
cost of sanitation prop- 
er. These figures do 
not include malarial 
cases treated in the dis- 
pensaries and in homes. 
Among this class of pa- 
tients the gain has un- 
doubtedly been propor- 
tionate to the gain in 
hospital cases, and in 
addition it must not be 
forgotten that malaria 
is a disease that under- 
mines a man's health in- 
sidiously and lowers his 
working efficiency to an 
extent not approached 
by any disease with the 




THE RIO GRANDE RESERVOIR 




IN PICTURESQUE TABOGA 
264 



THE TWO GREAT CANAL COMMISSION HOSPITALS 



265 



possible exception of hook-worm. The less malaria 
the fewer inefficient workers in an organization". 

Of course the screening system was vital to any 
successful effort to control and check the trans- 
mission of fever germs by insects. But the early 
struggles of Col. Gorgas to get 
enough wire netting to prop- 
erly protect the labor quar- 
ters were pathetic. "Why 
doesn't he screen in the whole 
Isthmus and let it go at that ' ' ? 
inquired one Congressman 
who thought it was all in- 
tended to put a few more frills 
on houses for already highly 
paid workers. The screening 
has indeed cost a pretty penny 
for only the best copper wire 
will stand the test of the cli- 
mate. At first there was re- 
luctance on the part of dis- 
bursing officers to meet the 
heavy requirements of Col. 
Gorgas. But the yellow-fever 
epidemic of 1905 stopped all 
that. Thereafter the screen- 
ing was regarded as much of 
an integral part of a house as 
its shingling. 

The efforts that were put 
forth to make the Canal Zone 
a liveable spot have not been 
relaxed in keeping it so. A 
glance at the report of the 
Chief Sanitary Officer for any 
year shows something of his 
continued activity. You find 
records of houses fumigated 
for beriberi, diphtheria, ma- 
laria, leprosy, and a dozen other evils. The number 
of rats kiUed is gravely enumerated — during the 
year 191 1 for example there were nearly 13,000. It 
may be noted in passing that the rats distribute 
fleas and fleas carry the germs of the bubonic plague, 
hence the slaughter. Incidentally guests of the na- 
tive hotels in Panama City say that the destruction 
was far from complete. 

Two large hospitals are maintained by the Canal 



Commission at Colon and at Ancon, together with 
smaller ones for emergency cases at Culebra and 
other points along the line. The two principal 
hospitals will be kept open after the completion of 
the Canal, but not of course to their full capacity. 




IN THE GROUNDS OF ANCON HOSPITAL 

Ancon alone has accommodations for more than 
1500 patients, and when the army of labor has left 
the Zone there can be no possible demand for so 
great an infirmary. Both of these hospitals were 
inherited from the French, and the one at Colon 
has been left much in the condition th'ey delivered 
it in, save for needed repairs and alterations. Its 
capacity has not been materially increased. The 
Ancon Hospital however has become one of the 



266 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




THE SANITARIUM AT TABOGA INHERITED FROM THE FRENCH 

great institutions of its kind in the world. The 
French gave us a few buildings with over 300 
patients sheltered in tents. The Americans de- 
veloped this place until now more than fifty build- 
ings are ranged along the side of Ancon Hill. When 
the French first established the hospital they installed 
as nurses a number of sisters of St. Vincent with 
Sister Rouleau as Sister Superior. The gentle sisters 
soon died. The yellow fever carried them off with 
heart-rending rapidity. Sister Marie however left 
a monument which will keep her fair fame alive 
' for many years yet to come. She was a great lover 
of plants, and the luxuriance of the tropical foliage 
was to her a never-ending charm. To her early 
efforts is due the beauty of the grounds of the 
Ancon Hospital, where one looks 
between the stately trunks of the 
fronded royal palms past a hill- 
side blazing with hibiscus, and 
cooled with the rustling of leaves 
of feather palms and plantains to 
where the blue Pacific lies smooth 
beneath the glowing tropic sun. 
Beside the beauty of its surround- 
ings the hospital is eminently 
practical in its plan. The many 
separate buildings permit the seg- 
regation of cases, and the most 
complete and scientific ventila- 
tion. 

Making the hospital attractive 
was one of the points insisted 



upon by Col. Gorgas. Some 
of the doctors think that pos- 
sibly it has been a wee bit 
overdone. Some of the folks 
along the Zone look on a brief 
space spent in the hospital as 
a pleasant, interlude in an oth- 
erwise monotonous life. As 
they have thirty days' sick 
leave with pay every year 
they are quite prone to turn 
to the pleasant slopes of An- 
con Hill, with a week at the 
charming sanitarium on Ta- 
boga Island as a fitting close — 
a sort of cafe parf ait to top off 
the feast. Surgery even seems to have lost its ter- 
rors there. "Why, they even bring their friends to 
be operated on", said one of the surgeons laughingly 
when talking of the popularity of the hospital among 
the Zone dwellers. 

Charity cases have numbered as many as 66,000 
a year and the records show that during the period 
of greatest activity on the Zone as many as 70 
different nationalities were ministered to. The 
question of color was often an embarrassing one. 
The gradations of shades between pure white to 
darkest African is so exceedingly delicate in Panama 
that there is always difficulty in determining whether 
the subject under consideration belongs to the " gold" 
or the "silver" class, for the words black and white. 




A FETE DAY AT TABOGA 



THE SYSTEM OF FREE MEDICAL TREATMENT 



267 



are tactfully avoided in the Zone in 
their reference to complexions. 
"This is my plan", said Col. Mason 
in charge of the hospital. "Oncer- 
tain days the patients are allowed 
visitors. When the color of the in- 
mate is problematical, as is usually 
the case with women, I ask if she 
wants her husband to visit her. If 
she does and he proves to be a negro, 
she goes, into the colored ward. If 
she still insists that she is white, 
she can go into the white ward, but 
must dispense with his visits". 

Under our treaty the Zone sani- 
tary department takes charge of the insane of Colon 
and Panama, and a very considerable share of the 
grounds at Ancon is divided off with barbed wire for 
their use. The number of patients runs well into 
the hiindreds, with very few Americans. Most are 
Jamaica negroes and the hospital authorities say 
that they are mentally unbalanced by the rush and 
excitement of life on the Zone. I never happened to 
see a Jamaica negro excited unless it happened to 
be a Tivoli Hotel waiter confronted with the awful 




FEATHER PALM AT ANCON 



responsibility of an extra guest at 
table. Then the excitement took 
the form of deep melancholy, exag- 
gerated lethargy, and signs of sui- 
cidal mania in every facial expres- 
sion. 

Beside the hospital service the 
sanitary department maintains dis- 
pensaries at several points on the 
line, where necessary drugs are pro- 
vided for patients in the Commis- 
sion Service free. Patent medicines 
are frowned upon, and such as are 
purveyed must be bought through 
the Commissary. Medical service 
is free to employees and their families. All doctors 
practicing on the Zone are on the gold payroll for 
wages ranging from $1800 to $7000 a year. I could 
not find upon inquiry that the fact that they were 
not dependent upon the patient for payment made 
the doctors less alert or sympathetic. At least no 
complaints to that effect were current. 

To my mind the most notable effect upon the 
life of the Zone of this system of free medical attend- 
ance was that it added one more to the many in- 




&*»-?« 






TABQGA FROM THE BATHING BEACH 



268 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



ducements to matrimony. Infantile colic and 
measles are shorn of much of their terror to the young 
parent when no doctor's bill attends them. Inci- 
dentally, too, the benevolent administration looks 
after the teeth of the employees as a part of its 
care of their general health. One effect of this is 
to impress the visitor with the remarkable number 
of incisors gleaming with fresh gold visible where 
Zone folk are gathered together. 

The annual vacations of the workers during the 




TABOGA IS FURTHERMORE THE CONEY ISLAND OF PANAMA 



construction period may properly be considered in 
connection with sanitation work on the Zone, for 
they were not permitted to be mere loafing time. 
The man who took a vacation was not allowed to 
stay on the Isthmus. If he tried to stay there Col. 
Goethals found it out in that omniscient fashion of 
his and it was a case of hike for a change of air 
or go back to work. For, notwithstanding the fact 
that Col. Gorgas pulled the teeth of the tropics 
■with his sanitary devices and regulations, an un- 
interrupted residence in that climate does break 
down the stamina and enfeeble the energy of men 



from more temperate climes. Every employee was 
given 42 days' vacation with full pay, but he had 
to quit the Zone for some country which would 
afford a beneficial climatic change. Of course most 
went back to the United States, being encouraged 
thereto by a special rate on the steamship of $30 — 
the regular rate being $75. But beside this vacation 
each employee was entitled to 30 days' sick leave. 
It was not an exceedingly difficult task to conjure 
up enough symptoms to persuade a friendly physi- 
cian to issue a sick 
order. The favorite 
method of enjoying 
this respite from work 
was to spend as little 
of the time' as possible 
at Ancon; and the rest 
at the sanitarium on 
the Island of Taboga. 
That garden spot in 
the Bay of Panama 
where the French left 
the sanitarium build- 
ing we now use is 
worth a brief descrip- 
tion. You go thither 
in a small steamboat 
from Balboa or Pan- 
ama and after about 
three hours' steaming 
a flock of little white 
boats, each with a sin- 
gle oarsman, puts out 
from the shore to meet 
you like a flock of 
gulls as you drop an- 
chor in a bay of truly Mediterranean hue. To the 
traveled visitor the scene is irresistibly reminiscent 
of some little port of Southern Italy, and the re- 
minder is all the more vivid when one gets ashore 
and , finds the narrow ways betwixt the elbowing 
houses quite Neapolitan for dirt and ill odor. But 
from the sea one looks upon a towering hill, bare 
toward its summit, closely covered lower down by 
mango, wild fig, and ceiba trees, bordered just 
above the red roofs of the little town by a fringe 
of the graceful cocoanut palms. Then come the 
houses, row below row, until they descend to the 



THE PLEASANT VILLAGE OF TABOGA 



269 



curving beach where the fishing boats are drawn up 
out of reach of the tide which rises some 20 feet. 

From the bay the village with its red-tiled roofs 
and yellow-white walls looks substantial, a bit like 
Villefranche, the port of Nice, but this impression 
is speedily dis- 
pelled when one 
lands in one of 
the boats, pro- 
pelled by the 
oarsman standing 
and facing the 
bow — a fashion 
seldom seen save 
in Italian waters. 
For seen near at 
hand the houses 
are discovered to 
be of the flimsiest 
frame construc- 
tion, savef or a few 
clustering about 
the little church 
and sharing with 
it a general de- 
crepitude and 
down-at-the-heels 
air that makes us 
think they have 
seen better days. 
As indeed they 
have and worse 
days too, for Ta- 
boga once shared 
in the prosperity 
of the early Span- 
ish rule, and en- 
joyed the honor 
of having enter- 
tained for a few 
weeks Sir Henry 

Morgan, that murderous pirate, who later became a 
baronet and a colonial governor, as a fine finish after 
his deeds of piracy and rapine. Taboga must 
have treated the buccaneer well, for not only did 
he forbear to sack the town, but so deep was the 
devotion paid by him and his men to certain tuns 
of excellent wine there discovered that they let a 



BURDEN BEARERS ON THE SAVANNA" 



Spanish galleon, deep-laden with gold and silver, 
slip through their fingers rather than interrupt 
their drinking bout. 

Tradition has it that the galleon was sunk nearby 
to save it and its cargo from the pirates, and treasure 

seekers have been 
hunting it ever 
since with the 
luck that ordi- 
narily attends as- 
pirants for dead 
men's gold. 

Just now the 
wine and wassail 
of Taboga is lim- 
ited to about six 
grog shops, which 
seems an over- 
supply for the 
handful of fisher- 
men who inhabit 
its tumble-down 
hovels. Each 
bar, too, has its 
billiard table and 
one is reminded 
of Mark Twain's 
islands in the 
South Sea where 
the people earned 
an honest living 
by. taking in each 
other's washing. 
One wonders if 
the sole industry 
of the Tabogans 
is playing bil- 
liards. There is 
indeed little to 
support the town 
save fishing, and 
that, if one may judge from specimens carried 
through the lanes, must be good. Some of the 
boats at anchor or drawn up on the beach attest 
to some prosperity amongst them that go down 
to the sea in ships. One that I saw rigged with 
a fore-and-aft sail and a jigger was hewn out of 
a single log like a river cayuca and had a beam 




lyo 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




HOTEL AT BOUQUETTE, CHIRIQUI 
The only point in Panama at which Canal employees may spend their vacations 



exceeding four feet. Before many of the houses 
were lines hung with long strips of fish hanging out 
to dry, for it is a curious property of this atmosphere 
that despite its humidity it will cure animal tissues, 
both fish and flesh, quickly and without taint. 

Agrictilture in Taboga is limited to the culture 
of the pineapple, and the local variety is so highly 
esteemed in the Panama markets that some measure 
of prosperity might attend upon the Tabogans would 
they but undertake the raising of pines systematically 
and extensively. But not they. Their town was 
fotmded in 1549 when, at the instance of Las Casas, 
the King of Spain 
gave freedom to 
all Indian slaves. 
Taboga was set 
apart as a resi- 
dence for a cer- 
tain part of these 
freedmen. Now 
what did the free- 
dom from slavery 
mean but free- 
dom from work? 
This view was 
probably held in 
the I 6th century 
and certainly ob- 
tains in Taboga 
today, having 
been enhanced no 
doubt by the lib- 




A BIT OF ANCON HOSPITAL GROUNDS 



eral mixture of negro blood with that of the native 
Indians. If the pineapples grow without too much 
attention well and good. They will be sold and the 
grog shops will know that real money has come into 
town. But as for seriously extending the business — 
well, that is a thing to think of for a long, long time 
and the thought has not yet ripened. It is a wonder 
that the Chinese who hold the retail trade of the 
island and who are painstaking gardeners have not 
taken up this industry. 

We may laugh at the easy-going Tabogan if we 
will, but I do not think that anyone will come out 

of his church 
without a certain 
respect for his 
real religious sen- 
timent. 'Tis but 
a little church, 
of stuccoed rub- 
ble, fallen badly 
into decay, 
flanked by a 
square tower 
holding two bells, 
and penetrated 
by so winding 
and narrow a 
stair that one as- 
cending it may 
feel as a cork- 
screw penetrating 
a cork; 



THE SANITARIUM AND LEPER COLONY 



271 



But within it shows signs of a reverent affection 
by its flock not common in Latin- American churches. 
We may laugh a little at the altar decorations which 
are certainly not costly and may be a little tawdry, 
but they show evidences of patient work on the 
part of the women, and contributions by the men 
from the slender gains permitted them by the harsh 
land and the reluctant sea. About the walls hang 
memorial tablets, not richly sculptured indeed, but 
showing a pious desire on the part of bygone genera- 
tions to have the virtue of their loved ones com- 
memorated within hallowed walls. Standing in a 
side aisle was an effigy of Christ, of human size, 
bearing the cross up the hill of Gethsemane. The 
figure stood on a sort of platform, surrounded by 
six quaint lanterns of panes of glass set in leaded 
frames of a design seen in the street lamps of the 
earlier Spanish cities. The platform was on poles 
for bearers, after the fashion of a sedan chair, and 
we learned from one who, more fortunate than we, 
had been there to see, that in Holy Week there is 
a sort of Passion Play — rude and elementary it is 
true, but bringing to the surface all the religious 
emotionalism of the simple people. The village is 
crowded with the faithful from afar, who make light 
of any lack of shelter in that kindly tropic air. The 
Taboga young men dress as Roman soldiers, the 
village maidens take their parts in the simple 
pageant. The floats, such as the one we saw, are 
borne up and down the village streets which no 
horse could ever tread, and the church is crowded 





Tllli CUIEf INDUSTRY OF THE NATIVES IS FISHING 



NURSES QUARTERS AT ANCON 

with devotional worshipers until Easter comes 
with the joyous tidings of the Resurrection. 

As to the part of Taboga in the economy of the 
Canal work, we have there a sanitarium inherited 
from the French, and used as a place of convalescence 
for almost recovered patients from the hospitals of 
the Zone. After breathing the clear, soft air, glanc- 
ing at the comfortable quarters and enjoying to the 
fullest a lunch costing fifty cents that would put 
Broadway's best to the test, and make the expen- 
sive Tivoli dining-room seem unappetizing in com- 
parison, we could well understand why every em- 
ployee with thirty days' sick leave to his credit gets 
just such a slight ailment as needs a rest at Taboga 
for its cure. 

Near Taboga is the leper hospital and the steamer 

stops for a moment to send 
ashore supplies in a small 
boat. Always there are 
about 75 victims of this 
dread and incurable dis- 
ease there, mostly Pana- 
manians with some West 
India negroes. A native 
of North America with the 
disease is practically un- 
known. The affliction is 
horrible enough in itself, 
but some cause operating 
for ages back has caused 
mankind to regard it with 
more fear than the facts 
justify. It is not readily , 



272 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



communicable to healthy persons, even personal 
contact with a leper not necessarily causing infec- 
tion unless there be some scratch or wound on the 
person of the healthy individual into which the virus 
may enter. Visitors to the Isthmus, who find in- 
terest in the spectacle of hopeless human suffering, 
frequently visit the colony without marked precau- 
tions and with no reported case of infection. 

To what extent the sanitation system so pains- 
takingly built up by Col. Gorgas and his associates 
will be continued after the seal "complete" shall 
be stamped upon the Canal work, and the workers 
scattered to all parts of the land, is not now deter- 
mined. Panama and Colon will, of course, be kept 
up to their present standards, but whether the war 
against the malarial mosquito will be pursued in 
the jungle as it is today when the health of 40,000 
human beings is dependent upon it is another 
question. The plan of the army authorities is to 
abandon the Zone to nature — which presumably 
includes the anopheles. Whether that plan shall 
prevail or whether the United States shall maintain 
it as an object lesson in government, including sani- 
tation, is a matter yet to be determined. In a 
hearing before a congressional committee in 1913 
Gol. Gorgas, estimated the cost for a system of 
permanent sanitation for the Zone, including the 
quarantine, at $90,000 a year. As his total esti- 



mates for the years 1913-14 amounted to $524,000, 
this is indicative of a very decided abandonment 
of activity in sanitary work. 

At all times during his campaign against the forces 
of fever and infection Col. Gorgas has had to meet 
the opposition charge of extravagance and the waste 
of money. It has been flippantly asserted that it 
cost him $5 to kill a mosquito — of course an utterly 
baseless assertion, but one which is readily met by 
the truth that the bite of a single infected mosquito 
has more than once cost a life worth many thousand 
times five dollars. To fix precisely the cost of 
bringing the Zone to its present, state of healthful- 
ness is impossible, because the activities of the 
sanitary department comprehended many functions 
in addition to the actual work of sanitation. Col. 
Gorgas figures that the average expenses of sanita- 
tion during the whole construction period were 
about $365,000 a year and he points out that for 
the same period Chicago spent $600,000 without 
any quarantine or mosquito work. The total ex- 
penditures for sanitation when the Canal is finished 
will have amounted to less than one per cent of 
the cost of that great public work and without this 
sanitation the Canal could never have been built. 
That simple statement of fact seems sufficiently to 
cover the contribution of Col. Gorgas to the work, and 
to measure the credit he deserves for its completion. 




THE LEPER SETTLEMENT ON PAN.\MA BAY 



CHAPTER XV 



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 



HE Republic of Panama has 
an area of from 30,000 to 35,- 
000 square miles, roughly ap- 
proximating that of the state of 
Indiana. No complete survey of 
the country has ever been made 
and there is pending now a boun- 
dary dispute with Costa Rica in 
which the United States is arbi- 
trator. The only other boundary, 
not formed by the sea, is that at 
and Colombia join. But Colom- 
is no boundary at all, but that 
Panama is one of her provinces in a state of 
rebellion. So the real size and bounds of the 
Republic must be set down as somewhat 
indeterminate. 

The circumstances under which Panama 
became an independent nation have been set 




which Panama 
bia says there 



forth in an earlier chapter. It is safe to say that 
with the heavy investment made by the United 
States in the Canal Zone, on the strength of a 
treaty with the infant republic, the sovereignty of 
Panama will be forever maintained against all 
comers — except the United States itself. There are 
political philosophers who think that the Isthmus 
state may yet be the southern boundary of the Great 
Republic of the North. For the present however 
Uncle Sam is quite content with the Canal Zone and 
a certain amount of diplomatic influence over the 
government of Panama. 

Panama is divided into seven provinces, Bocas del 




THE GORGE OF SALAMANCA 



274 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




NATIVE FAMILY IN C110RK1:R.\ 



Toro, Code, Colon, Chiriqui, Los Santos, Panama 
and Veragua. Its total population by the census 
of 191 1 was 386,749, a trifle more than the District 
of Columbia which has about one five-thousandth of 
its area, and almost precisely the same population as 
Montana which has less than half its size. So it is 
clearly not over-populated. Of its population 51,323 
are set down by its own census takers as white, 
191,933 as mestizo, or a cross between white and 
Indian, 48,967 as negro; 2313 Mongol, and 14,128 
Indian. The census takers estimated that other 
Indians, living in barbarism remote from civilization 
and unapproachable by the enimierators, numbered 

36,138. 

All these figures have to be qualified somewhat. 
The mestizos are theoretically a cross between whites 
and Indians, but the negro blood is very generally 



present. It is doubtful, too, whether those classed 
as white are not often of mixed blood. 

A singularly large proportion of the population 
lives in the towns. In 12 towns, exceeding 7000 in- 
habitants each, are more than 150,000 people. 
More than one-third of the people therefore are 
town dwellers, which is to say they are unproductive 
citizens. Meanwhile more than five-eighths of the 
arable land in the country is not under cultivation. 

The five chief towns of Panama with their popu- 
lation in 191 1 are: 

Panama 37>505 

Colon 17-748 

David 15.059 

Santiago 13,081 

Bocas del Toro 9-759 



THE DOUBTFUL SOIL OF PANAMA 



275 



Of these towns David is the capital of the Chiri- 
qui province, the portion of the republic in which 
cattle growing and agriculture have been most de- 
veloped. Bocas del Toro is a banana port, de- 
pendent upon that nutritious fruit for its very exist- 
ence, and the center of the 
business of the United Fruit 
Company in Panama. At 
present the former town is 
reached by a 300 mile water 
trip from Panama City; the 
latter by boat from Colon. 
The government has under 
way plans for a railroad from 
Panama to David which give 
every indication of being con- 
summated. 

The soil of the Republic 
differs widely in its varying 
sections, from the rich vege- 
table loam of the lowlands 
along the Atlantic Coast, the 

outcome of years of falling leaves and twigs from 
the trees to the swamp below, to the high dry lands 
of the savannas and the hillsides of the Chiriqui 
province. All are undeniably fertile, that is demon- 
strated by the rapid and 
rank growth of the jun- 
gle. But opinions differ 
as to the extent to which 
they are available for 
useful agriculture. Some 



hold that the jungle soil is so rich that the plants 
run to wood and leaves to the exclusion of fruits. 
Others declare that on the hiUsides the heavy rains 
of the rainy seasons wash away the surface soil leav- 
ing only the harsh and arid substratum. This 





A blKLLi IN l'LM:.i\Oilii 



THE HOTEL AT DAVID 

theory seems to be overthrown by the fact that it is 
rare to see a hillside in all Panama not covered with 
dense vegetation. A fact that is well worth bearing 
in mind is that there has never been a systematic 
and scientific effort to utilize any part of the soil of 
Panama for productive purposes that has not been 
a success. The United Fruit Company in its plan- 
tations about Bocas del Toro has developed a fruit- 
ful province and created a prosperous town. In the 
province of Code a German company has set out 

about 75,000 cacao 
trees, 50,000 coffee 
bushes and 25,000 rub- 
ber trees, all of which 
have made good prog- 
ress. 

The obstacles in the 
path of the fuller de- 
velopment of the na- 
tional resources of 
Panama have sprung 
wholly from the nature 
of its population. The 
Indian is, of course, 
not primarily an agri- 
culturist, not a devel- 



276 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



*v ^ «? ' v^^A-- 





VIEW OF BOCAS DEL TORO 



''oper of the possibilities of the land he inhabits. The 
Spanish infusion brought to the native population 
no qualities of energy, of well-directed effort, of the 
laborious determination to build up a new and thriv- 
ing commonwealth. 
Spanish ideals run 
directly counter to 
those involved in em- 
pire building. Such 
energy, such deter- 
mination as built up 
our great north- 
west and is build- 
ing in British Co- 
lumbia the greatest 
agricultural em- 
pire in the world, 
despite seven 
months annually of 
drifting snow and 
frozen ground, 
would make of the 
Panama savannas 
and valleys the gar- 
den spot of the 
world. That will 
never be accom- 
plished by the 
Photo oj, crucMow prcscnt agrarian 

VISTA ON THE RIG GRANDE populatiou, but it is 




incredible that with population absorbing and over- ' 
running the available agricultural lands of other 
zones, the tropics should long be left dormant in 
control of a lethargic and indolent people. 

Benjamin Kidd, in his stimulative book. "Social 
Evolution", says on this subject: 

"With the filling up to the full limit of the re- 
maining territories suitable for European occupa- 
tion, and the growing pressure of population therein, 
it may be expected that the inexpediency of allowing 
a great extent of territory in the richest region of the 
globe — that comprised within the tropics — to re- 
main undeveloped, with its resources running largely 
to waste under the management of races of low 
social efficiency, will be brought home with ever- 
growing force to the minds of the Western (North- 
ern) peoples. The day is probably not far distant 
when, with the advance science is making, we shall 
recognize that it is in the tropics and not in the 
temperate zones we have the greatest food-pro- 
ducing and material -producing regions of the earth; 
that the natural highways of commerce in the world 
are those which run north and south; and that we 
have the highest possible interest in the proper 
development and efficient administration of the 
tropical regions, and in an exchange of products 
therewith on a far larger scale than has yet been 
attempted or imagined. . . '. It will probably be 
made clear, and that at no distant date, that the 
last thing our civilization is likely to permanently 



THE SIMPLE STUDY OF NATIVE LIFE 



277 




Pfioto by Underwood & Underwood 



AT THE CATTLE PORT OF AGUADULCE 
This is one of the chief shipping points for the cattle ranches of Chiriqui. The industry is one little developed 



tolerate is the wasting of the resources of the richest 
regions of the earth through lack of the elementary 
qualities of social efficiency in the races possessing 
them". 

Some of the modern psychol- 
ogists who are so expert in solving 
the riddles of human conscious- 
ness that they hardly hesitate 
to approach the supreme problem 
of life after death may perhaps 
determine whether the indolence 
of the Panamanian is racial, 
climatic, or merely bred of con- 
sciousness that he does not have 
to work hard in order to get 
aU the comforts of which he has 
knowledge. The life-story of 
an imaginary couple will serve 
as the short and simple annals 
of tens of thousands of Panama's 
poor: 

Miguel lived on the banks of 
the Chagres River, about half 
way between Cruces and Alha- 
juela. To him Cruces was a 
city. Were there not at least 
thirty huts of bamboo and clay 
thatched with palmetto like the 
one in which he lived? Was 
there not a church of sawn 
boards, with an altar to which 




THE ROYAL EOAD NEAR PANAMA 



a priest came twice a month to say mass, and a 
school where a gringo taught the children strange 
things in the hated English tongue? Where he lived 
there was no other hut within two or three hours 
poling up the river, biit down 
at Cruces the houses were so 
close together you could almost 
reach one while sitting in the 
shade of another. At home 
after dark you only heard the 
cry of the whippoorwill, or occa- 
sionally the wail of a tiger cat 
in tl'.e jimgle, but at Cruces 
there was always the loud talk 
of the men in the cantina, and 
a tom-tom dance at least once' 
a week, when everybody sat up 
till dawn dancing to the beat of 
the drums and drinking the good 
rum that made them all so jolly. 
But greater than Cruces was 
the Yankee town of Matachin 
down on the banks of the river 
where the crazy Americans said 
there was going to be a lake 
that some day would cover all 
the country, and drown out 
Cruces and even • his father's 
house. They were paying all 
the natives along the river for 
their lands that would be sunken, 



278 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



and the people were taking the pesos gladly and drawing long trains of cars; where more people 

spending them gaily. They did not trouble to move worked with shovels tending queer machines than 

away. Many years ago the French too said there there were in ten towns like Cruces ; where folk gave 

would be a lake, but it never came and the French pesos for bananas and gave cloth, powder and shot, 

suddenly disappeared. The Americans would vanish things to eat in cans, and rum in big bottles for the 



the same way, 
and a good thing, 
too, for their 
thimderous noises 
where they were 
working fright- 
ened away all the 

: good game, and 
you could hardly 
find an iguana, 
or a wild hog in 
a day's hunting. 

.- Once a week 
Miguel's father 
went down to 
market at Mata- 
chin, and some- 
times the boy 
went along. The 
long, narrow 
cayucawasloaded 
with oranges, ba- 
nanas and yams, 
all covered with 
bigbanana leaves, 
and with Miguel 
in the bow and 
his father in the 
stem the voyage 
commenced. Go- 
ing down stream 

, was easy enough, 
and the canoists 
plied their paddles 
idly, trusting 

chiefly to the current to carry them along. But 
coming back would be the real work, then they 
would have to bend to their poles and push savagely 
to force the boat along. At places they would have 
to get overboard and fairly carry the boat through 
the swift, shallow rapids. But Miguel welcomed 
the work for it showed him the wonders of Matachin, 
where great iron machines rushed along like horses, 




Photo bi/ f'lul' rii'nnl <S: Underwood 

THE MEETING PLACE OF THE CAYUCAS 



pesos again. It 
was an exciting 
place this Mata- 
chin and made 
Miguel under- 
stand what the 
gringoes meant 
when they talked 
about New York, 
Chicago and other 
cities like it. 

When he grew 
older Miguel 
worked awhile for 
the men who were 
digging away all 
this dirt, and 
earned enough to 
buy himself a 
machete and a 
gun and a few 
ornaments for a 
girl named Maria 
who lived in an- 
other hut near 
the river. But 
what was the use 
of working in that 
mad way — pick- 
ing up your shovel 
when a whistle 
blew and toiling 
away until it blew 
again, with a boss 
always scolding 
at you and ready with a kick if you tried to take 
a little siesta. The pesos once a week were good, 
that was true. If you worked long enough you 
might get enough to buy one of those boxes that 
made music, but quien sahe? It might get broken 
anyway, and the iguanas in the jungle, the fish in 
the river and the yams and bananas in the clearing 
needed no silver to come to his table. Besides he 



THE BUILDING OF THE BRIDEGROOM'S HOUSE 



279 



was preparing to become a man of family. Maria 
was quite willing, and so one day they strolled off 
together hand in hand to a clearing Miguel had 
made with his machete on the river bank. With 
that same useful tool he cut some wooden posts, 
set them erect in the ground and covered them with 
a heavy thatch of palmetto leaves impervious to sun 
or rain. The sides of the shelter were left open during 
the first months of wedded life. Later perhaps, when 
they had time they would go to Cruces at the 
period of the priest's regular visit and get regularly 
married. When the rainy season came on and walls 
were as necessary as a roof against the driving rain, 
they would build a little better. When that time 
came he would set ten stout uprights of bamboo in 
the ground in the shape of an oblong, and across 
the tops would fasten six cross pieces of girders with 
withes of vine well soaked to make them pliable. 
This would make the frame of the first floor of his 



house. The walls he would make by weaving reeds, 
or young bamboo stalks in and out betwLxt the posts 
until a fairly tight basketwork filled the space. 
This was then plastered outside with clay. The 
dirt, which in time would be stamped down hard, 
formed the floor. For his second story a tent- 
shaped frame of lighter bamboo tightly tied together 
was fastened to the posts, and cane was tied to each 
of the rafters as we nail laths to scantling. Thus 
a strong peaked roof, about eight feet high from the 
second floor to the ridgepole was constructed, and 
thatched with palm leaves. Its angle being exceed- 
ingly steep it sheds water in the fierce tropic rain 
storms. The floor of the second story is made of 
bamboo poles laid transversely, and covered heavily 
with rushes and palmetto. This is used only as the 
family sleeping apartment, and to give access to it 
Miguel takes an 8-inch bamboo and cuts notches 
in it, into which the prehensile toes of his family 









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BANANA MARKET AX MATACHIN 



28o 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




IN THE CHIEIQUI COUNTRY 

may fit as they clamber up to the land of Nod. 
Furniture to the chamber floor there is none. The 
family herd together like so many squirrels, and with 
the bamboo climbing pole drawn up there is no 
danger of intrusion by the beasts of the field. 

In the typical Indian hut there is no furniture on 
the ground floor other than a rough hewn bench, 
a few pieces of pottery and gourds, iron cooking 
vessels and what they call a kitchen, which is in fact 
a large fiat box with raised edges, about eight square 
feet in surface and about as high from the floor as 
a table. This is filled with sand and slabs of stone. 
In it a little fire is built of wood or charcoal, the 
stones laid about the fire support the pots and pans 
and cooking goes on as gaily as in any modern elec- 
tric kitchen. The contrivance sounds primitive, 
but I have eaten a number of excellent meals 
cooked on just such an apparatus. 

Now it will be noticed that in all this habita- 
tion, sufficient for the needs of an Indian, there is 
nothing except the iron pots and possibly some pot- 
tery for which money was needed, and there are 
thousands of families living in just this fashion in 
Panama today. True, luxury approaches in its 
insidious fashion and here and there you will see a 
$1.25 white iron bed on the main floor, real chairs, 
canned goods on the shelves and — final evidence of 
Indian prosperity! — a crayon portrait of the head 



of the family and a phono- 
graph, of a make usually 
discarded at home. But 
when Miguel and Maria 
start out ■ on the journey 
of life a machete, a gun 
and the good will of their 
neighbors who will lend 
them yams until their 
own planting begins to 
yield forms a quite suf- 
ficient capital on which 
to establish their family. 
Wherefore, why work? 

It is beyond doubt to 
the ease with which life 
can be sustained, and the 
torpidity of the native 
imagination which depicts 
no joys to spur one on to 
effort that the unwillingness of the native to do 
systematic work is due. And from this difficulty in 




BANANA plant; NOTE SIZE OF MAN 




COFYKIGIIT. 1913, BV 1-. 



A TYPICAL NATIVE HUT 

While native architecture is not stately it is artistic in that it harmonizes with its natural surroundings and is 
eminently adapted to the needs of the people wlio inhabit the huts. 



LABOR AND LAND TITLES IN PANAMA 



281 



getting labor follows the fact 
that not one quarter of the 
natural resources of Panama 
are developed. Whether the 
labor problem will be solved 
by the distribution through- 
out the republic of the Carib- 
bean blacks who have worked 
so well on the Zone is yet to 
be seen. It may be possible 
that because of this the fertile 
lands of Panama, or the sa- 
vannas so admirably fitted for 
grazing, can only be utilized 
by great corporations who will 
do things on so great a scale 
as to justify the importation 

of labor. Today the man who should take up a 
large tract of land in the Chiriqui country with a 
view to tilling it would be risking disaster because 
of the uncertainty of the labor supply. 

Another obstacle in the way of foreign settlement 
of Panama has been the uncertainty of land titles. 
Early surveyors seem to have been in the habit of 
noting as the identification marks of their lines such 
volatile objects as a blackbird in a tree, or such per- 
ishable ones as an ant hill or a decaying stump. 
Facilities for recording titles also have been ill ar- 
ranged. One of the first tasks of the new Republic 
was to take up this matter and it has been reduced 
.to fairly systematic form. The Republic is offering 




A NATIVE LIVING ROOM AND STAIRWAY 
By pulling up the bamboo ladder, or turning it, communication with the upper floor is closed 

for sale great quantities of public lands long held as 
commons by various municipalities.. Much of this 
land lies along the line of the railroad from Panama 
to David, and is of varying grades suitable for graz- 
ing, forestry or agriculture. A fLxed price of 50 
cents per hectare is charged, a hectare being prac- 
tically 23-2 acres.^ The government has gone quite 
efficiently into the task of disposing of these lands, 
and pamphlets explanatory of methods of securing 
titles, terms, etc., can be obtained by addressing the 
Administrator-General at Panama. The Pan-Amer- 
ican Union, of Washington, D. C, has issued a 
pamphlet giving a summary in English of the Pana- 
manian law bearing upon the subject. 

With the lack of labor, and the 
uncertainty of land titles, the final 
impediment to the general develop- 
ment of the interior of Panama is to 
be found in the lack of roads. It is 
not that the roads are bad — that is 
the case in many of our own common- 
wealths. But in a great part of 
Panama there are literally no roads 
at all. Trails, choked by the jungle 
and so washed by the rains that they 
are merely lanes floored with boulders, 
are the rule. The heav\' ox-cart is 
the only vehicle that will stand the 
going, and our light American farm 
wagons would be speedily racked to 
pieces. In the Canal Zone the Com- 




CONSTRUCTION OF ROOF OF A NATIVE HOUSE 
The photograph is taken looking directly upward from the ground floor 



282 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



mission has built some of the best roads in the world, no huge herds as on our western ranges. Droves 
utilizing the labor of ernployees convicted of minor of from ten to twenty are about the average among 
ofEenses. Stimulated by this example the Panama the small owners who rely on the public range for 
government has built one excellent road from subsistence. The grass is not sufficiently nutri- 
the chief city across the savannas to Old ^ ~^_^ tious to bring the cattle up to market 



Panama and thence onward into the 
interior. It is hoped that the 
spectacle of the admirable roads 
in the Zone will encourage 
the authorities of the Re- 
public to go into road 
building on a large scale 
in their own country. In 
no other way can its pos- 
sibilities be realized. At 
present the rivers afford 
the surest highways and 
land abutting them 
brings higher prices. 

David, the largest interior 
town of Panama, is the central 
point of the cattle industry. All 
around it are woods-, or jungles, plenti- 
fully interspersed with broad prairies, 




form, so the small owners sell to the 
owners of big ranches who main- 
tain potreros, or fattening ground 
sown with better grasses. A 
range fed steer will fetch 
$15 to $18, and after six 
or eight months on the 
potrero it will bring $30 
to $35 from the cattle 
shipper at David. Since 
the cost of feeding a beeve 
for that period is only about 
one dollar, and as the de- 
mand is fairly steady the 
profit of the ranchman is a good 
one. But like all other indus- 
tries in Panama, this one is pur- 
sued in only a retail way. The 



RUBBER PLANTATION NEAR 
COCLE 



market is great enough to enrich 
or llanos, covered with grass, and on -j-j^g planter's original hut in the ranchmen who would go into the business 
which no trees grow save here and foreground. The board cabin on a large scale, but for some reason 

with corugated iron roof 

there a wild fig or a ceibo. Cattle shows prosperity none do. 

graze on the llanos, sleek reddish beasts with Passing from llano to llano the road cuts through 

spreading horns like our Texas cattle. There are the forest which towers dense and impenetrable on 




BOLIVAR PARK AT BOCAS DEL TURO 



AGRICULTURE AND TEMPERATURE IN PANAMA 



283 




A FORD NEAR ANTON 



either side, broken only here and there by small 
clearings made by some native with the indispensable 
machete. These in the main are less than four 
acres. The average Panamanian farmer will never 
incur the scriptural curse laid upon them that lay 
field luito field. He farms just enough for his daily 
needs, no more. The ambition that leads our 
northern farmer to always covet the lands on the 
other side of his boundary fence does not operate in 
Panama. One reason is, of course, the aggressive- 
ness of the jungle. Stubborn to clear away, it is 
determined in its efforts to regain the land from 
which it has been ousted. Such a thing as allowing 
a field to lie fallow for two or three years is unknown 
in Panama. There would be no field visible for the 
new jungle growth. 

Agriculture therefore is conducted in a small way 
only, except for the great corporations that have just 
begun the exploitation of Panama. Whether the 
country affords a hopeful field for the individual 
settler is at least doubtful. Its climate is excel- 
lent. The days are warm but never scorchingly 



hot as are customary in Washington and frequent 
in New York. The nights are cool. From Decem- 
ber to May a steady trade wind blows over the Isth- 
mus from north to south, carrying away the clouds 
so that there .is no rain. In this dry season the 
fruits mature, so that it corresponds to the northern 
summer ; on the other hand such vegetation as sheds 
its leaves, or dies down annuall}-, does so at this 
season, giving it a seeming correspondence to the 
northern winter. In a temperature sense there is 
neither summer nor winter, and the variation of the 
thermometer is within narrow limits. The highest 
temperature in years at Ctilebra, a typical inland 
point, was 96 degrees; the lowest 61. 

The list of natural products of the Isthmus is im- 
pressive in its length and variety, but for most of them 
even the home demand is not met or supplied by the 
production. Only where some stimulating force from 
the outside has intervened, like the United Fruit 
Company with the banana, has production been 
brought up to anything like its possibility. In the 
Chiriqui country you can see sugar cane fields that 



284 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 





#^ 




^«?'^t :-vJB 







OLD BANANA TREES 

have gone on producing practically without 
tion for fifteen seasons. Cornfields have 
worked for half 
a century with- 
out fertilizing 
or rotation of 
crops. The soil 
there is vol- 
canic detritus 
washed down 
during past 
ages from the 
mountainsides, 
and lies from 
six to twenty 
feet thick. It 
will grow any- 
thing that 
needs no frost, 
but the pro- 
vince supports 
less than four 



atten- 
been 



people to the square mile, nine-tenths of the land 
is unbroken and Panama imports fruit from Jamaica, 
sugar from Cuba and tobacco and food stuffs from 
the United States. 

The fruits of Panama are the orange, which grows 
wild and for the proper cultivation of which no ef- 
fort has been made, which is equally the case with 
the lemon and the lime ; the banana, which plays so 
large a part in the economic development of the 
country that I shall treat of it at length later; the 
pineapple, cultivated in a haphazard way, still at- 
tains so high an order of excellence that Taboga 
pines are the standard for lusciousness ; the mango, 
which grows in clusters so dense that the very trees 
bend under their weight, but for which as yet little 
market has been found, as they require an acquired 
taste; the mamei, hard to ship and difficult to eat 
because of its construction but withal a toothsome 
fruit; the paypaya, a melon not unlike our canta- 
loupe which has the eccentricity of growing on trees; 
the sapodillo, a fruit of excellent flavor tasting not 
unlike a ripe persimmon, but containing no pit. 
With cultivation all of these fruits could be grown 
in great quantities in all parts of the RepubUc, but 
to give them any economic importance some special 
arrangement for their regular and speedy marketing 
would have to be made, as with the banana, most 
of them being by nature extremely perishable. 




PINEAPPLES IN THE FIELD 



RUBBER AND COCOANUTS OFFER POSSIBILITIES 



285 




Northern 
companies are 
finding some 
profit in ex- 
ploiting such 
natural re- 
sources of Pa- 
nama as are 
available in 
their wild 
state. Of these 
the most prom- 
ising is rubber, 
the tree being 
found in prac- 
tically every 
part of the 
country. ^ One 

concern, the Boston-Panama Company, has an 
estate approximating 400 square miles on which 
are about 100,000 wild rubber trees, and which 




WAITING FOR THE BOAT 



COUNTRY HOUSE OF A CACAO PLANTER AT CHORIA 
This industry is in its infancy in Panama, but promises to be a considerable resource 

is beir g further developed by the planting ' of 
bananas, pineapples, cocoanuts and other tropical, 
fruits. 

Coffee, sugar and cacao are raised on the Isth- 
mus, but of the two former not enough to supply 
the local demand. The development of the cacao 
industry to large proportions seems probable, as 
several foreign corporations are experimenting on a 
considerable scale. Cocoanuts are easily grown 
along both coasts of the Isthmus. A new grove 
takes about five years to come into bearing, costing 
an average of about three dollars a tree. Once es- 
tablished the trees bring in a revenue of about one 
dollar each at present prices and, as the demand for 
Panama cocoanuts is steady, the industry seems to 
offer attractive possibilities. The groves must be 
near the coast, as the cocoanut tree needs salt au- 
to reach its best estate. Given the right atmos- 
pheric conditions they will thrive where no other 
])lant will take root. Growing at the edge of the 
sea, water transportation is easy. 

There is still much land available for cocoanut 
planting, though but little of it is government land. 
Both coasts are fit for this industrj^ unlike the 
banana industry, which thrives only on the Atlantic 
shore. Panama is outside of the hurricane belt, which 
gives an added advantage to the cocoanut planter. 
Elsewhere in the Caribbean the trees suffer severely 
from the high winds. 

The lumber of Panama will in time come to be 



286 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




STARTED FOR MARKET 



one of its richest assets. 
In the dense forests 
hardwoods of a dozen 
varieties or more are 
to be found, but as 
yet the cost of getting 
it out is prohibitive 
in most sections. Only 
those forests adjacent 
to streams are econo- 
micaUy valuable and 
such activity as is 
shown is mainly along 
the Bayano, Chucu- 
naque, and Tuyra 
Rivers. The list of 
woods is almost inter- 
minable. The pro- 
spectus of one of the 
companies with an ex- 
tended territory on the 
Bayano River notes 
eighteen varieties of 
timber, commercially valuable on its territory. 
Among those the names of which are unfamiliar are 
the espave (sometimes spelled espeve), the cocobolo, 
the espinosa cedar, the zoro and the sangre. All are 
hard woods serviceable in cabinet making. The 
espave is as hard as mahogany and of similar color 
and marking. The trees will run four to five feet 
thick at the stump with saw timber 60 to 70 feet in 
length. Espinosa trees are of the cedar type, grow- 
ing to enormous size, frequently exceeding 16 feet in 
circumference. The cocobolo is a hard wood, but 
without the beauty to fit it for cabinet work. The 
sangre derives its name from its red sap which exudes 
from a gash like blood. It takes a high polish, and 
is in its general characteristics not unlike our cherry. 
For the casual tourist the lumber district most 
easy of access is that along the Bayano River reached 
by a motor boat or steam launch in a few hours from 
Panama. The trip is frequently made by pleasure 
seekers, for perhaps nowhere in the world is the 
beauty of a phosphorescent sea at night so marvel- 
ously shown, and few places easily found by man 
show such a horde of alligators or crocodiles, as 
are seen in Crocodile Creek, one of the affluents of 
the Bayano. This river, which empties into the Gulf 



of Panama, is in its lower reaches a tide-water stream 
and perhaps because of the mingling of the salt 
and the fresh the water is densely filled with the mi- 
croscopic infusoria which at night blaze forth in 
coldly phosphorescent gleams suggestive of the 
sparkling of a spray of diamonds. Put your hand 
into the stream, lift it and let the water trickle 
through your fingers. Every drop gleams and glis- 
tens as it falls with a radiance comparable with 
nothing in nature unless it be the great fire-flies of 
the tropics. Even diamonds have to pass through 
the hands of the cutter before they will blaze with 
any such effulgence as the trickling waters of this 
tropical stream. One who has passed a night upon 
it may well feel that he has lived with one of the 
world's marvels, and can but wonder at the matter- 
of-fact manner in which the natives go about their 
tasks unmoved by the contact with so much shining 
glory. 

There is always controversy on the Isthmus over 
the question whether the gigantic saurians of Croco- 
dile Creek are in fact crocodiles or alligators. Wheth- 















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LOADING CATTLE AT AGUADULCE 



THE SPORT OF SHOOTING ALLIGATORS 



287 



er expert scientific 
opinion has ever been 
called upon to settle 
the problem I do not 
know, but I rather 
suspect that crocodile 
was determined upon 
because it gave to the 
name of Crocodile 
Creek in which they 
are so plentifully found 
"apt alliteration's art- 
ful aid" to make it picturesque. ' Whatever the 
precise zoological classification given to the huge 
lizards may be is likely to be relatively unimportant 





MAHOGANY TREES WITH ORCHIDS 



DOLEGA IN THE CHIRIQUI PROVINCE 

before long, because the greatest joy of every tourist 
is found in killing them. The fascination which 
slaughter possesses for men is always hard to under- 
stand, but just what gives the killing of alligators 
its peculiar zest I could never understand. The 
beasts are slow, torpid and do not afford a peculiarly 
difficult test of marksmanship, even though the vul- 
nerable part of their bodies is small. They are 
timid and will not fight for their lives. There is 
nothing of the sporting proposition in pursuing them 
that is to be found in hunting the tiger or the grizzly. 
They are practically harmless, and in the Bayano 
region wholly so, as there are no domestic animals 
upon which they can prey. It is true their teeth 
and skins have a certain value in the market, but 
it is not for these the tourist kills them. Most of 
those slain for "sport" sink instantly and carmot 
be recovered. 

However if you visit Crocodile Creek with a 
typical party you will be given a very fair imitation 
of a lively skirmish in actual war. From every part 
of the deck, from the roof of the cabin, and from 
the pilot house shots ring out from repeating rifles 
in a fierce desire to kill. The Emersonian doctrine 
of compensation is often given illustration by the 
killing of one of the hunters in the eagerness to get 
at the quarry. In fact that is one of the commonest 
accidents of the tourist season in Panama. 

Crocodile Creek is a deep, sluggish black stream, 
almost arched over by the boughs of the thick forest 
along the shores. Here and there the jungle is bro- 
ken by a broad shelving beach on which the un- 
gainly beasts love to sun themselves, and to which 
the females resort to deposit their eggs. At the 
sound of a voice or a paddle in the stream the awk- 
ward brutes take to the water in terror, for there 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



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BAYANO CEDAR, EIGHT FEET DIAMETER 



the subject of slaughter 
and the extermination 
of game it may be noted 
that the Canal Com- 
mission has already 
established very strin- 
gent game laws on the 
Zone, particularly for 
the protection of plumed 
birds like the egret, and 
it is seriously proposed 
to make of that part 
of Gatun Lake within 
the Zone a refuge for 
birds in which no shoot- 
ing shall be permitted. 
Such action would stop 
mere wanton slaughter 
from the decks of pass- 
ing steamers, and in the 
end would greatly en- 
hance the beauty and 
interest of the trip 



are few animals more timid 
than they. When in the water 
the crocodile floats lazily, dis- 
playing only three small bumps 
above the surface — the nostrils 
and the horny protruberances 
above the eyes. Once the 
pool in which they float is 
disturbed they sink to the 
bottom and lurk there for 
hours. Alligator hunting for 
business purposes is not as 
yet generally pursued on the 
Isthmus, though one hunter 
and trapper is said to have 
secured as many as 6o,ooo in a 
year. But as the demand for 
the skins, and to a lesser degree 
for the teeth, of the animals 
is a constant one, it is prob- 
able that with the aid of the 
tourists they will be extermi- 
nated there as thoroughly as 
they have been in the settled 
parts of Florida,., While on 





STREET IN DAVID 



THE CACAO TREE 

through the lake which 
would be fairly alive 
with birds and other 
animal life. 

The Bayano River 
region beside being the 
center of such lumber- 
ing activities as the 
Zone knows at present 
is the section in which 
are found the curious 
vegetable ivory nuts 
which, though growing 
wild, have become one 
of the principal products 
of Panama. Only a 
few years ago they were 
looked upon merely as 
curiosities but are now 
a useful new material. 
They are gathered by 
the natives and sold 
to dealers in Panama 




IN THE BANANA COUNTRY 
289 



290 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



who ship them north to be made into buttons and 
other articles of general use. Nobody has yet 
experimented with the cultivation of the tree, and 
there is reason to believe that with cultivation larger 
nuts could be 




obtained, and, 
by planting, 
considerable 
groves estab- 
lished. The 
trees grow well 
in every part of 
the Darien, and 
the demand, 
with the rapid 
diminution in 
the supply of 
real ivory, 
should be a 
growing one. 

Indeed, the 
more one studies 
Panama and its 
resources the 
more one is con- 
vinced that all 
that is necessary 
to make the 
country a rich 
and prosperous 
one, or at any 
rate to cause it 
to create riches 
and prosperity 
for investors, is 
the application 
of capital, labor 
and systematic 
management to 
the resources it 
already posses- 
ses. In its 400 

years of Spanish and mestizo control these three 
factors have been continuously lacking. There are 
men in Panama, of native birth and of Spanish 
origin, who have undertaken to develop certain of 
the land's resources and have moderately enriched 
themselves. But the most striking evidence of the 



success to be obtained from attacking the industrial 
problem in Panama systematically and in a big way is 
that furnished by the operations of the United Fruit 
Company, the biggest business fact in the tropics. 

Panama is, of 
course, only one 
link in the colos- 
sal chain of the 
operations of 
this company in 
the tropics. The 
rapidly increas- 
ing prosperity of 
many of the 
Central Repub- 
lics is due largely 
to the sweeping 
scope of the 
United Fruit 
Company, and 
its impress is in 
evidence all 
along the north 
coast of South 
America and 
throughout the 
West Indies. Its 
interests in Ja- 
ma i c a are 
enormous. Cuba 
put Jamaica off 
the sugar map, 
but the United 
Fruit Company 
came to her 
rescue with an 
offer to purchase 
all the bananas 
her planters 
could furnish, 
and Jamaica 
now leads the 
American tropics with 17,000,000 bunches annually, 
of which the United Fruit Company obtains nearly 
half, the balance being handled by its competitors. 
The company also owns the famous Titchfield Hotel 
of Port Antonio, and operates the Myrtle Bank 
Hotel of Kingston. In Cuba the company owns 



MARKET PLACE AT ANCON 



A COLOSSAL AGRICULTURAL ENTERPRISE 



291 




FRUIT COMPANY STEAMER AT WHARF 

60,000 acres of sugar plantations and its two great 
sugar mills will this year add to the world's product an 



United Fruit Company made gardens of the low 
Caribbean coast lands and created from the virgin 
wilderness such ports as Barrios, Cortez, Limon and 
Bocos del Toro. 

This Yankee enterprise has erected and maintains 
at its own expense many of the lighthouses which 
serve its own great fleet and the ships of all the 
world. It has dredged new channels and marked 
them with buoys. It has installed along the Central 
and South American coasts a wireless telegraph 
service of the highest power and efficiency. It has 
constructed hundreds of miles of public roads, main- 
tains public schools, and in other ways renders at its 
own expense the services which are presumed to fall 
on governments. The American financiers associ- 
ated with it are now pushing to completion the Pan- 
American railroad which soon will connect New 




LMTED FRUIT COMPANY TRAIN 

This narrow guage railroad carries no freight except bananas. Nearly 1000 miles of such road are maintained 



amount with a market value in excess of $10,000,000. 
Its scores of white steamships, amazingly well contrived 
and fitted for tropical service, constitute one of the 
pleasantest features of travel on these sunlit seas. 
The United Fruit Company is by far the greatest 
agricultural enterprise the world has ever known. 
Its fruit plantations constitute a farm half a mile 
wide and more than seven hundred miles long. All 
of its farm lands exceed in area the 1332 square miles 
which constitute the sovereign State of Rhode 
Island. On these farms are more than 25,000 head 
of live stock. This agricultural empire is traversed 
by nearly 1000 miles of railroad. To carry the 
fruits from the plantations to the seaports there are 
employed 100 locomotives and 3000 freight cars. 
An army of nearly 40,000 men is employed in this 
new and mammoth industry. The republics of 
Central America were inland nations before the 



York with Panama by an all-rail route, and thus 
realize what once was esteemed an impractical dream. 




SANITARY OFriCE, BOCAS DEL TORO 



292 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




A PILE OF REJECTED BANANAS 
The fruit is thrown out by the company's inspectors for scarcely visible flaws 

But it is the United Fruit Company's activities in 
Panama only that are pertinent to this book. They 
demonstrate strikingly how readily one natural op- 
portunity afforded by this land responded to the 
call of systematic effort, and there are a dozen prod- 
ucts beside the banana which might thus be ex- 
ploited. 

On the Atlantic coast, only a night's sail from 
Colon, is the port of Bocos del Toro (The Mouths 
of the Bull) , a town of about 9000 inhabitants, built 
and largely maintained by the banana trade. Here 
is the largest and most beautiful natural harbor in 
the American tropics, and here some day will be es- 
tablished a winter resort to which will flock people 
from all parts of the world. Almirante Bay and the 
Chiriqui Lagoon extend thirty or forty miles, dotted 
with thousands of islands decked with tropical ver- 
dure, and flanked to the north and west by superb 
mountain ranges with peaks of from seven to ten 
thousand feet in height. 

The towns of Bocas del Toro and Almirante are 
maintained almost entirely by the banana trade. 
Other companies than the United Fruit raise and 
buy bananas here, but it was the initiative of the 
leading company which by systematic work put the 



prosperity of this section on a 
firm basis. Lands that a few 
years ago were miasmatic 
swamps are now improved and 
planted with bananas. Over 
4,000,000 bunches were 
exported from this plantation 
in 191 1, and 35,000 acres are 
under cultivation there. A 
narrow gauge railway carries 
bananas exclusively. The 
great white steamships sail 
almost daily carrying away 
little except bananas. The 
money spent over the counters 
of the stores in Bocas del Toro 
comes from natives who have 
no way of getting money except 
by raising bananas and selling 
them, mostly to the United 
Fruit Company. It has its 
competitors, but it invented 




A PERFECT BUNCH OF BANANAS 



THE BANANA AS AN EMPIRE BUILDER 



293 



the business and has brought 
it to its highest development. 
At this Panama town, and 
for that matter in the other 
territories it controls, the com- 
pany has established and en- 
forces the sanitary reforms 
which Col. Gorgas applied so 
effectively in Colon and 
Panama. Its officials proud- 
ly claim that they were the 
pioneers in inventing and ap- 
plying the methods which 
have conquered tropical dis- 
eases. At Bocas del Toro the 
company maintains a hospital 
which lacks nothing of the 
equipment of the Ancon Hos- 
pital, though of course not so 
large. It has successfully 
adopted the commissary system established on the 
Canal Zone. Labor has always been the trouble- 
some factor in industrial enterprises in Central 
America. The Fruit Company has joined with the 
Isthmian Commission in the systematic endeavor 
to keep labor contented and therefore efficient. 




This harbor of the 




Probably 

it will be the 

policy which any 

corporation attempting to do work on a large 

scale will be compelled to adopt. 



THE BAY OF BOCAS 
chief banana port of Panama would accommodate a navy 

To my mind the United Fruit Company, next to the 
Panama Canal, is the great phenomenon of the Carib- 
bean world today. Some day some one with knowl- 
edge will write a book about it as men have written 
the history of the British East India Company, or 
the Worshipful Company of Hudson Bay Adven- 
turers, for this distinctly 
American enterprise has ac- 
complished a creative work 
so wonderful and so romantic 
as to entitle it to equal liter- 
ary consideration. Its coopera- 
tion with the Republic of 
Panama and the manner in 
which it has followed the 
plans formulated by the Isth- 
mian Commission entitles it 
to attention in a book treat- 
ing of Panama. 

The banana business is the 
great trade of the tropics, and 
one that cannot be reduced 
in volume by new competi- 
tion, as cane sugar was checked by beet sugar. 
But it is a business which requires special machinery 
of distribution for its success. From the day the 
banana is picked until it is in the stomach of the ulti- 
mate consumer the time should not exceed three weeks. 



THE ASTOR YACHT 
AT CRISTOBAL 



294 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 





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BRINGING HOME THE CROCODILE 

The fruit must be picked green, as, if allowed to 
ripen on the trees, it splits open and the tropical in- 
sects infect it. This same condition, by the way, af- 
fects all tropical fruits. All must be gathered while 
still unripe. The nearest wholesale market for ba- 
nanas is New Orleans, five days' steaming. New 
York is seven 
days away. That 
means that once 
landed the fruit 
must be distrib- 
uted to commis- 
sion houses and 
agents all over 
the United States 
with the utmost 
expedition lest it 
spoil in transit. 
There can be no 
holding it in stor- 
age, cold or other- 
wise, for a 
stronger demand 
or a higher 
market. This 
means that the 
corporation must 
deal with agents 
who can be relied 



upon to absorb the cargoes of the 
ships as regularly as they arrive. 
From its budding near the Panama 
Canal to its finish in the alimentary 
canal of its final purchaser the banana 
has to be handled systematically and 
swiftly. 

To establish this machinery the 
United Fruit Company has invested 
more than $190,000,000 in the tropics 
— doubtless the greatest investment 
next to the Panama Canal made in 
that Zone. How much of this is 
properly a Panama investment can 
hardly be told, since for example the 
Fruit Company's ships which ply to 
Colon and Bocas del Toro call at 
other banana ports as well. These 
ships are peculiarly attractive in 
design and in their clothing of snowy white, and I 
do not think there is any American who, seeing 
them in Caribbean ports, does not wonder at the 
sight of the British flag flying at the stern. His aston- 
ishment is not allayed when he learns that the company 
has in all more than 100 ships of various sizes, and 



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A MORNING S SHOOTING 



WHY THE AMERICAN FLAG IS RARE 



295 



nearly all of British registry. The transfer of that 
fleet alone to American registry would be a notable 
and most desirable step. 

From officials of the company I learned that they 
would welcome the opportunity to transfer their 
ships to American registry, except for certain re- 
quirements of the navigation laws which make such 
a change hazardous. Practically all the ownership 
of the ships is vested in Americans, but to fly the 
British flag is for them a business necessity. Chief 
among the objections is the clause which would give 
the United States authority to seize the vessels in 
time of war. It is quite evident that this power 
might be employed to the complete destruction of 
the Fruit Company's trade; in fact to its practical 
extinction as a business concern. A like power exist- 
ing in England or Germany would not be of equal 
menace to any single company flying the flag of that 
nation, for there the government's needs could be fully 
supplied by a proper apportionment of requisitions 
for ships among the many companies. But with the 
exceedingly restricted merchant marine of the United 





ON CROCODILE CREEK 
Each spot looking like a leaf on the water is the nose of a submerged saurian 



Pholo by Carl hayaen 

THE END OF THE CROCODILE 

States the danger of the enforcement of this right 
would be an ever-present menace. It is for this reason 
that the Fruit Company steamers fly the British flag, 
and the American in Colon may see, as I did one 
day, nine great ocean ships in the port with only one 
flying the stars and stripes. The opening of the canal 

will not wholly 
remedy this. 

In all re- 
spects save the 
registry of its 
ships, however, 
the Fruit Com- 
pany is a thor- 
oughly Ameri- 
can concern 
and to its 
operations in 
the Caribbean 
is due much of 
the good feel- 
ing toward the 
United States 
which is ob- 
servable there. 
In 1 91 2 it car- 
ried 1,113,741 
tons of freight, 
of which 359,- 
•686 was general 
freight, carried 
for the public 



296 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




ABOVE THE CLOUDS, CHIRIQUI VOLCANO 



in addition to company freight. This is a notable 

pubHc service, profitable no doubt but vital to the 

interests of the American tropics. It owns or holds 

under leases 852,650 acres, and in 1912 carried to 

the United States about 25,000,000 bunches of 

bananas, and 16,000,000 bunches to Great Britain 

and the Continent. Viewed 

from the standpoint of the 

consumer its work certainly 

has operated to cheapen 

bananas and to place them 

on sale at points where they 

were never before seen. The 

banana has not participated 

in the high cost of living nor 

has one company monopolized 

the market, for the trade 

statistics show 17,000,000 

bunches of bananas imported 

by rival companies in 19 12. 

As for its stimulation of the 

business of the ports of New 

Orleans, Galveston and 

Mobile, and its revivifying of 



trade along the 
Caribbean, 
both are mat- 
ters of common 
knowledge. 

The banana 
thrives best in 
rich soil 
covered with 
alluvial depos- 
its and in a 
climate of 
great humidity 
where the 
temperature 
never falls be- 
low 75 degrees 
Fahrenhe i t. 
Once estab- 
lished the plan- 
tation needs 
little attention, 
the plant being 
self-propagat- 
ing from suckers which shoot off from the "mat," 
the tangled roots of the mother plant. It begins to 
bear fruit at the age of ten or eleven months, and 
with the maturing of one bunch of fruit the parent 
plant is at once cut down so that the strength of the 
soil may go into the suckers that succeed it. Per- 




THE CHIRIQUI VOLCANO 



GETTING THE BANANAS TO MARKET 



297 



haps the most technical work of the cultivator is to 
select the suckers so that the plantation will not 
bring all its fruit to maturity in one season, but 
rather yield a regular succession of crops, month 
after month. It was interesting to learn from a 
representative of the United Fruit Company at 
Bocas del Toro, that the banana has its dull season 
— not in pro- 
duction but in 
the demand for 
it which falls 
off heavily in 
winter, though 
one would sup- 
pose that sum- 
mer, when our 
own fruits are 
in the market, 
would be the 
period of its 
eclipse. 

While most 
of the fruit 
gathered in the 

neighborhood of Bocas del Toro is grown on 
land owned and tilled by the Company, there 
are hundreds of small individual growers with 
plantations of from half an acre to fifty acres 
or even more. All fruit is delivered along 
the railway lines, and the larger growers 




l^t^^^K^nariJiin^- 




IN BOUQUETTE VALLEY, THE MOST FERTILE PART OF CHIRIQUI 



NATIVE MARKET BOAT AT CHORRERA 



have tramways, the cars drawn by oxen ■ 
or mules, to carry their fruit to the stipulated 
point. Notice is given the growers of the date on 
which the fruit will be called for, and within 
twelve to eighteen hours after it has been cut it is 
in the hold of the vessel. It is subjected to a rigid 

inspection at the docks, 
and the flaws for which 
whole bunches are reject- 
ed would often be quite 
undiscernible to the ordi- 
nary observer. 

The banana is one of 
the few fruits which are 
free from insect pests, be- 
ing protected by its thick, 
bitter skin. If allov-ed tO' 
ripen in the open, how- 
ever, it speedily falls a prey 
to a multitude of egg-lay- 
ing insects. The tree it- 
self is not so immune. 
Lately a small rodent, 
something like the gopher 



298 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




•'^!&'^^-''. 



(<ilii,K PLANT AT BOUQUETTE 

of our American states, has discovered that banana 
roots are good to eat. From time 
immemorial he Uved in the jungle, 
burrowing;; and nibbling the roots of 
the plants there, but in an unlucky 
moment for the fruit companies 
he discovered that tunneling in 
soil that had been worked was 
easier and the roots of the culti- 
vated banana more succulent than 
his normal diet. Therefore a large 
importation of scientists from Europe 
and the United States to find some 
way of eradicating the industrious 
pest that has attacked the chief 
industry of the tropics at the root, 
so to speak. 



Baron Humboldt is said to have first cbiled tne 
attention of civilized people to the food value of the 
banana, but it was one of the founders of the United 
Fruit Company, a New England sea captain trading 
to Colon, who first introduced it to the general mar- 
ket in the United States. For a time he carried 
home a few bunches in the cabin of his schooner for 
his family and friends, but, finding a certain demand 
for the fruit, later began to import it systematically. 
From this casual start the United Fruit Company 
and its hustling competitors have grown. The 
whole business is the development of a few decades 
and people still young can remember when bananas 
were sold, each wrapped in tissue paper, for five or 
ten cents, while today ten or fifteen cents a dozen 
is a fair price. The fruit can be prepared in a multi- 
tude of fashions, particularly the coarser varieties of 
plantains, and the Fruit Company has compiled a 
banana cook book but has taken little pains to cir- 
culate it, the demand for the fruit being at times 
still in excess of the supply. There seems every 
indication that the demand is constant and new 
banana territory is being steadily developed. 

Several companies share with the United Fruit 
Company the Panama market. The methods of 
gathering and marketing the crop employed by all 
are practically the same, but the United Fruit Com- 
pany is used as an illustration here because its busi- 
ness is the largest and because it has so closely fol- 
lowed the Isthmian Canal Commission in its welfare 
work. 

The banana country lies close to the ocean and 




DRYING THE COFFEE BEANS 



DAVID AND THE CATTLE COUNTRY 



299 




DRYING CLOTHS FOR COFFEL 
Where the planter has no regular drying floor, cloths are spread on which the berries 

are exposed 

mainly on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus. The 
lumber industry nestles close to the rivers, mainly 
in the Bayano region. Cocoanuts need the beaches 
and the sea breezes. Native rubber is found in 
every part of the Republic, though at present it is 
collected mainly in the Darien, which is true also 
of vegetable ivory. The only gold which is mined 
on a large scale is taken from the neighborhood of 
the Tuyra River in the Darien. But for products re- 
quiring cultivation like cacao and coffee the high 
lands in the Chiriqui province offer the best oppor- 
tunity. 

David is really the center of this territory. It is 
a typical Central American town of about 15,000 
people, with a plaza, a cathedral, a hotel and all 
the apptirtenances of metropolitan life in Panama. 
The place is attractive in its way, with its streets 
of white-walled, red-tiled dwellings, with blue or 
green doors and shutters. It seems to have grown 
with some steadiness, for though the Panama census 
^, for 1912 gave it 15,000 inliabitants, travelers like 
I Mr. Forbes Lindsay and Albert Edwards, who 
I visited it only a year or two earlier, gave it only 
■ from 5000 to 8000 people. Its growth, however, is 
natural and healthy, for the country round it is 
developing rapidly. You reach David now by 
boats of the Pacific Mail and the National Navi- 
gation Company from Panama. The quickest trip 



takes thirty hours. When the govern- 
ment railroad is built, about which 
there is some slight doubt, the whole 
country will be opened and should 
be quickly settled. The road in all 
probability will be continued to Bocas 
del Toro on the Atlantic coast. 

While the cattle business of the 
Chiriqui region is its chief mainstay, 
it is far from being developed to its 
natural extent. The Commissary 
ofificials of the Canal organization 
tried to interest cattle growers to the 
extent of raising enough beef for the 
need of the Canal workers, but failed. 
Practically all of the meat thus used 
is furnished by the so-called "Beef 
Trust" of the United States. It is 
believed that there are not more than 
50,000 head of cattle all told in 
Panama. I was told on the Isthmus that agents 
of a large Chicago firm had traveled through Chiriqui 




Photo by Underwood it Underwood 

BREADFRUIT TREE 



300 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




PRIMITIVE SUGAR MILL 

with a view to establishing a packing house 
there, but reported that the supply of cattle was 
inadequate for even the smallest establishment. 
Yet the country is admirably adapted for cattle 
raising. 

The climate of this region is equable, both 
as to temperature and humidity. Epidemic dis- 
eases are practically unknown among either men 
or beasts. Should irrigation in future seem need- 
ful to agriculture the multitude of streams furnish 
an ample water supply and innumerable sites for 
reservoirs. 

Westward from David the face of the country 
rises gently until you come to the Caldera Valley 
which lies at the foot of the Chiriqui Peak, an ex- 
tinct volcano perhaps 8000 feet high. Nowhere 
in Panama do the mountains rise very high, though 
the range is clearly a connection of the Cordilleras of 
North and South America. The Chiriqui Peak has 
not in the memory of man been in eruption, but the 
traces of its volcanic character are unmistakable. 
Its crater is a circular plain about half a mile in diam- 
eter surrounded by a densely wooded precipitous 
ridge. As the ascent is continued the woods give 
way to grass and rocks. While there is a distinct 
timber line, no snow line is attained. At the foot 
of the mountain is El Bouquette, much esteemed 
by the Panamanians as a health resort. Thither 
go Canal workers who, not being permitted 
to remain on the Zone during their vacations, 
wish to avoid the long voyage to North American 
ports. 

This neighborhood is the center of the coffee-grow- 



ing industry which should be prof- 
itable in Panama if a heavy pro- 
tective tariff could make it so. But 
not even enough of the fragrant 
berries are grown to supply home 
needs, and the industry is as yet 
largely prosecuted in an unsystem- 
atic and haphazard manner. It is 
claimed that sample shipments of 
coffee brought high prices in New 
York, but as yet not enough is 
grown to permit exportation. 
Cacao, which thrives, is grown 
chiefly by English, and German 
planters, but as yet in a small 




CHIRIQUI NATIVES IN AN OX-CART 



GOLD FROM THE INDIAN TOMBS 



301 



way only. Cotton, 
tobacco and fiber 
plants also grow 
readily in this region 
but are little culti- 
vated. 

A curious industry 
of the Chiriqui coun- 
try, now nearly 
abandoned, was the 
collection of gold 
ornaments which the 
Guaymi Indians for- 
merly buried with 
their dead. These 
images sometimes in 
human form, more 
often in that of a fish, 
sometimes like frogs 

and alligators, jointed and flexible, were at one time 
found in great quantities and formed a conspicuous 
•feature of the Panama curiosity shops. In seeking 
these the hunters walked back and forth over the 
grounds known to be Indian burial places, tapping 
the ground with rods. When the earth gave forth 
a hollow sound the spade was resorted to, and 
usually a grave was uncovered. Jars which had 
contained wine and food were usually found in the 
graves, which were in fact subterranean tombs care- 





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THE CATTLE RANGE NEAR DAVID 
In Chiriqui province there is much of this open savanna or prairie land bordered by thiclc jungle 



fully built with flat stones. The diggers tell of 
finding skulls perfectly preserved apparently but 
which crumbled to pieces at a touch. Evidently 
the burial places which can be identified through 
local tradition have been nearly exhausted, for the 
ancient trinkets cannot longer be readily found in 
the Panama shops. 

Another Panamanian product which the tourists 
buy eagerly but which is rapidly becoming rare is 
the pearl. In the Gulf of Panama are a group of 

islands which have been known 
as Las Islas des Perlas — ■ 
the Pearl Islands. This archi- 
pelago is about thirty miles 
long, with sbcteen big islands 
and a quantity of small ones, 
and lies about sixty miles 
south of Panama C.ity. 
Balboa saw them from the 
shore and intended to visit 
them but never did. Pizarro 
stopped there on his way to 
Peru and plundered them to 
his heart's content. Other- 
wise their liistory has been 
uneventful. Saboga on the 
island of the same name is 
a beautiful little tropical 
There being a dearth of newspapers and readers, new laws are promulgated by being read aloud Village ot about 3OO huts, on 




PROCLAIMING A LAW AT DAVID 



302 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




DESPOILING OLD GUAYMI GRAVES 

a high bluff bordering a bay that affords excellent 
anchorage. Whales are plentiful in these waters 
and Pacific whalers are often seen in port. San 
Miguel, the largest town of the archipelago, is on 
Rey Island and has about looo inhabitants. The 
tower of its old church is thickly inlaid with glisten- 
ing, pearly shell. 

The pearl fisheries have been overworked for 
years, perhaps centuries, and begin to show signs 
of being exhausted. Nevertheless the tourist who 
takes the trip to the islands from the City of Panama 
will find himself beset by children as he lands offer- 
ing seed pearls in quantities. Occasionally real bar- 
gains may be had from "beach combers" not only 
at Rey Island, but even at Taboga, where I knew an 
American visitor to pick up for eleven dollars three 
pearls valued at ten or twelve times as much when 
shown in the United States. There are stories of 
lucky finds among divers that vie with the tales of 
nuggets among gold prospectors. Once a native 
boy diving for sport in one of the channels near Naos 
Island brought up an oyster in which was a black 
pearl that was sold in Panama for $3000. The re- 
port does not say how much of this the boy got, but 
as the pearl was afterward sold in Paris for $12,000 
it is quite evident that the share of the middleman, 
of whom political economists just now talk so much, 
was heavy. The Panama pearls are sometimes of 
beautiful colors, green, pale blue and a delicate pink. 
On the Chiriqui coast a year or two ago a pearl 
weighing about forty-two carats, about the size and 
shape of a partridge egg, greenish black at the base 
and shading to a steel gray at the tip, was found. 
It was sold in Paris for $5000. 

It is a curious fact that the use of mussels from our 



western rivers is one cause for the decadence of the 
Panama pearl industry. For years the actual ex- 
pense of maintaining these fisheries was met by the 
sale of the shell for use in making buttons and 
mother-of-pearl ornaments. The pearls represented 
the profit of the enterprise, which was always there- 
fore more or less of a gamble — but a game in which 
it was impossible to lose, though the winnings might 
be great or small according to luck. Now that the 
demand for pearl oyster shells has fallen off, owing 
to the competition of mussels, the chances in the 
game are rather against the player and the sport 
languishes. 

The authorities of the Republic are making some 
eftort to establish a system of industrial schools 
which may lead to the fuller utilization of the natural 
resources of the country. Every tourist who visits 
the Isthmus is immediately taught by one who has 
been there a day or two longer than he that Panama 
hats are not made in Panama. This seems to be 




A DAY S SHOOTING, GAME MOSTLY MONKEYS 



EFFORTS FOR A SYSTEM OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 



303 



the most precious information that anyone on the 
Zone has to impart. Most of the hats there sold 
are indeed made in Ecuador and the name "Panama" 
was first attached to them years ago, because their 
chief market was found in Panama City, whence 
they were distributed to more northern countries. 
The palm of which they are made however grows 
generally in Panama and the government has 
established in the Chiriqui province a school in 
which native boys are taught the art of hat making. 
In the National Institute at Panama City there is 
also a government trades school where boys are 
given a three years' course in the elements of the 
carpenters' and machinists' trades. Indeed the 
rulers of the Republic, which was so abruptly created, 
deserve great credit for the steps they are taking 
for the creation of a general system of public educa- 
tion, both literary and practical. The school system 
is not yet on a par with that of states of longer 
existence, nor will it in all probability ever quite 
conform to more northern ideas of an educational 
establishment. For example, the National Institute 
is closed to girls, who for their higher education are 
limited to the schools maintained by the church. 
A normal school, however, in which girls are pre- 
pared for teaching in the primary grades is main- 
tained with about 125 students. The school system 
of Panama must be regarded merely as a nucleus 
from which a larger organism may grow. Yet when 





THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF HAT MAKING 



BEGINNING A PANAMA HAT 

one recalls the state of society which has resulted 
from revolutions in other Central American states, 

one is impelled to a certain 
admiration for the prompti- 
tude with which the men who 
erected the Republic of Pan- 
ama gave thought to the edu- 
cational needs of people. They 
were suddenly put in author- 
ity over an infant state which 
had no debt, but, on the con- 
trary, possessed a capital of 
$10,000,000 equivalent to 
about $30 for every man, 
woman and child of its pop- 
ulation. Instead of creating 
an army, buying a navj- and 
thus wasting the money on 
mere militarism which ap- 
peals so strongly to the Latin- 
American mind, they organ- 



304 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



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COFFEE PLANTATION AT BOUQUETTE 

ized a civil government, equipped it with the neces- 
sary buildings, established a university and laid the 
foundation of a 
:national system 
■of education. 

The thought- 
ful traveler will 
<;oncede to the 
Republic of Pan- 
ama great natu- 
ral resources and 
.a most happy 
entrance to the 
family of nations. 
It is the especial 
protege of the 
United States 

and under the watchful care of its patron will 
be free from the apprehension of misuse, revolu- 
tion or invasion from without which has kept 
other Central American governments in a constant 
state of unrest. About the international morality 
of the proceedings which created the relations now 
■existing between the United States and Panama 
perhaps the least said the better. But even if we 
reprobate the sale of Joseph by his brethren, in the 
scripture story, we must at least admit that he did 
better in Egypt than in his father's house and that 
the protection and favor of the mighty Pharaoh 
was of the highest advantage to him, and in time 
to his unnatural brethren as well. 

At present the Republic suffers not only from its 
own checkered past, but from the varied failings 



WORK OF INDIAN STUDENTS IN THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE 



of its neighbors. Its monetary system affords one 
illustration. The highest coin of the land is the 
peso, a piece the size of our silver dollar but circu- 
lating at a value of fifty cents. If a man should 
want to pay a debt of $500 he would have to deliver 
1000 pesos unless he was possessed of a bank account 
and could settle by check. No paper money is 
issued. "Who would take paper money issued by 
a Central American republic?" ask the knowing 
ones scornfully when you inquire about this seeming 
lack in the monetary system. Yet the Republic 
of Panama is the most solvent of nations, having 
no national debt and with money in bank. 

Probably the one obstacle to the progress of the 
Republic to greatness is the one common to all 
tropical countries on which Benjamin Kidd laid an 
unerring finger when he referred to the unwisdom of 

longer permit- 
ting the riches 
of the tropics to 
"remain unde- 
veloped with re- 
sources running 
to waste under 
the management 
of races of low 
social effi- 
ciency". The 
Panamanian au- 
thorities are 
making appar- 
ently sincere 
endeavors to attract new settlers of greater effi- 
ciency. In proportion to the success that attends 
the efforts the future of Panama 
will be bright. 




THE CRATER OF THE CHIRIQUI VOLCANO 







COliKlOHT, 1^13, BV I--. E. WKIGIIT 



VENDOR OF FRUIT AND POTTERY 

Like all tropical towns Panama displays interesting bits of outdoor life in its street markets and vendors. The 
sidewalks are the true shops and almost the homes of the people. 



CHAPTER XVI 



THE INDIANS OF PANAMA 




HILE that portion of the 
Panama territory that Hes 
along the border of Colombia 
known as the Darien is rather 
ill-defined as to area and to 
boundaries, it is known to 
be rich in 
timber and is 
believed to 
possess gold 
mines of great 



proved — that he had discovered a route by which 
a canal could be built with but three or four miles 
of cutting. The party carried ten days' provisions 
and forty rounds of ball cartridge per man. They 
expected to have to traverse about forty or fifty 
miles, for which the supply of provisions seemed 



richness. But it is practically im- 
penetrable by the white man. 
Through this country Balboa led his 
force on his expedition to the un- 
known Pacific, and was followed by 
the bloodthirsty Pedrarias who bred 
up in the Indians a hatred of the 
white man that has grown as the 
ages passed. No expedition can enter 
this region even today except as an 
armed force ready to fight for the 
right of passage. In 1786 the Span- 
iards sought to subdue the territory, 
built forts on both the Atlantic and 
Pacific coasts and established a line 
of trading posts connecting them. 
But the effort failed. The posts were 
abandoned. Today the white man 
who tries to enter the Darien does 
so at the risk of his life. 

In 1854 ^ navy exploring expedition 
of twenty-seven men, under command 
of Lieutenant Isaac C. Strain, entered 
the jungle of the Darien at Caledonia 
Bay, on the Atlantic side, the site of 
Patterson's ill-fated colony. They 
purposed crossing the Isthmus and 
making a survey for a canal route, 
as an English adventurer not long 
before had asserted — falsely as it 




Pholo by Underwood & Undcru-ood 



TRAPPING AN ABORIGINE 
In houses and clothing the Darien Indians are decidedly primitive 



305 



3o6 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




NATIVE VILLAGE ON PANAMA BAY 

wholly adequate. But when they had cut their 
way through the jungle, waded through swamps 
and climbed hills until their muscles were exhausted 
and their clothing torn to tatters, they found | 
themselves lost in the very interior of the Isthmus 
with all their food gone. Diaries kept by members 
of the party show that they lived in constant terror 
of the Indians. But no attack was made upon them. 
The inhabitants contented themselves with dis- 
appearing before the white men's advance, sweeping 
their huts and fields clear of any sort of food. The 
jungle not its people fought the invaders. For food 
they had mainly nuts with a few birds and the diet 
disturbed their stomachs, caused sores and loosened 
their teeth. The bite of a certain insect deposited 
under the skin a kind of larva, or worm, which grew 
to the length of an inch and caused the most fright- 
ful torments. Despairing of getting his full party 
out alive, after they had been twenty-three days 
fighting with the jungle. Strain took three men and 
pushed ahead to secure and send back relief. It 
was thirty-nine days before the men left behind 
saw him again. 

Death came fast to those in the jungle. The 
agonies they suffered from starvation, exposure and 
insect pests baffle description. "Truxton in casting 
his eyes on the ground saw a toad", wrote the 
historian. "Instantly snatchin^j it up, he bit off 
the head and, spitting it away, devoured the body. 
Maury looked at him a moment, and then picked 
up the rejected head, saying, 'Well, Truxton, you 



are getting quite par- 
ticular. Something of 
an epicure, eh'?j 
With these words he 
quietly devoured the 
head himself." 

Nine of the twenty- 
seven men who 
entered the Darien 
with Strain died. 
When the leader re- 
turned with the relief 
party they were found, 
like Greely at Camp 
Starvation, unable to 
move and slowly dying. 
Those who retained 
life never fully regained 
strength. Every con- 
dition which brought 
such frightful disaster 
upon the Strain party 
exists in the Darien today. The Indians are as 
hostile, the trails as faintly outlined, the jungle as 
dense, the insects as savage. Only along the banks 
of the rivers has civilization made some little head- 
way, but the richest gold field twenty miles back 
in the interior is as safe from civilized workings as 
though it were walled in with steel and guarded by 
dragons. Every speculative man you meet in 
Panama will assure you that the gold is there but 
all agree that conditions must be radically changed 
before it can be gotten out unless a regiment and 
a subsistence train shall follow the miners. 

The authorities of Panama estimate that there are 
about 36,000 tribal Indians, that is to say aborigines, 




A RIVER LANDING PLACE 



MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS 



307 



still holding their tribal organ- 
izations and acknowledging 
fealty to no other government 
now in the Isthmus. The 
estimate is of course largely 
guesswork, for few of the wild 
Indians leave the jungle and 
fewer still of the census enu- 
merators enter it. Most of 
these Indians live in the moun- 
tains of the provinces of Bocas 
del Toro, Chiriqui and Vera- 
gua, or in the Darien. Their 
tribes are many and the sources 
of information concerning 
them but few. The most 
accessible and complete record 
of the various tribes is in a 
pamphlet issued by the Smith- 
sonian Institution, and now 
obtainable only through public 
libraries, as the edition for 
distribution has been 
exhausted. The author, Miss 

Eleanor Yorke Bell, beside studies made at first 
hand has diligently examined the authorities on the 
subject and has presented the only considerable 
treatise on the subject of which I have knowledge. 
Of life among the more civilized natives she says: 
"The natives of the Isthmus in general, even in 
the larger towns, live together without any marriage 
ceremony, separating at will and dividing the 




Photo by Underwood tt Unatrwuud 




THE FALLS AT CHORRERA 



ON THE RIO GRANDE 

children. As there is little or no personal property," 
this is accomplished amicably as a rule, though 
should disputes arise the alcalde of the district is 
appealed to, who settles the matter. This informal 
system is always stoutly defended by the women, 
even more than by the men, for, as among all people 
low in the scale of civilization, it is generally held 
that the women receive better treatment when not 
bound and therefore free to depart 
at any time. Recently an effort has 
been made to bring more of the 
inhabitants under the marriage laws, 
with rather amusing results in many 
instances. The majority of the popu- 
lation is nominally Catholic, but the 
teachings of the church are only 
vaguely understood, and its practices 
consist in the adoration of a few 
battered images of saints whose partic- 
ular degree, of sanctity is not even 
guessed at and who, when their 
owners are displeased with them, 
receive rather harsh treatment, as 
these people have usually no real 



308 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




OLD SPANISH CHURCH, CHORRERA 

idea of Christianity beyond a few distorted and 
superstitious beliefs. After the widespread surveys 
of the French engineers, a sincere effort was made 
to re-Christianize the inhabitants of the towns in 
Darien as well as elsewhere, for, until this time, 
nothing had been done toward their spiritual welfare 
since the days of the early Jesuits. In the last 
thirty years spasmodic efforts have been made to 
reach the people with little result, and, excepting 
at Penonome, David, and Santiago, there are few 
churches where services are held outside of Panama 
and the towns along the railroad. 

' ' The chief amusements of the Isthmian are gam- 
bling, cock-fighting, and dancing, the 
latter assisted by the music of the 
tom-tom and by dried beans rattled 
in a calabash. After feasts or burials, 
when much bad rum and whisky is 
consumed, the hilarity keeps up all 
night and can be heard for miles, 
increased by the incessant howls of 
the cur dogs lying under every shack. 
Seldom does an opportunity come to 
the stranger to witness the really 
■characteristic dances, as the natives 
do not care to perform before them, 
though a little money will sometimes 
work wonders. Occasionally, their 
dancing is really remarkably interest- 
ing, when a large amount of panto- 
mime enters into it and they develop 
the story of some primitive action, 
as, for instance, the drawing of the 



water, cutting the wood, mak- 
ing the fire, cooking the food, 
etc., ending in a burst of song 
symbolizing the joys of the 
new prepared feast. In an 
extremely crude form it re- 
minds one of the old opera 
ballets and seems to be a 
composite of the original Afri- 
can and the ancient Spanish, 
which is very probably the 
case. 

"The Orientals of the Isth- 
mus deserve a word in passing. 
They are chiefly Chinese 
coolies and form a large part of the small merchant 
class. Others, in the hill districts, cultivate large 
truck gardens, bringing their produce swinging over 
the shoulders on poles to the city markets. Their 
houses and grounds are very attractive, built of 
reed or bamboo in the eastern fashion and marked 
everywhere by extreme neatness, contrasting so 
strikingly with the homes and surroundings of their 
negro neighbors. Many cultivate fields of cane or 
rice as well, and amidst the silvery greens, stretching 
for some distance, the quaint blue figures of the 
workmen in their huge hats make a charming 
picture. Through the rubber sections Chinese 




THE CHURCH AT ANTON 



THE MANY TRIBES OF PANAMA INDIANS 



309 



'middlemen' are of late frequently found buying 

that valuable commodity for their fellow countrymen 

in Panama City, who are now doing quite a large 

business in rubber. These 

people live much as in their 

native land, seldom learning 

more than a few words of 

Spanish (except those living 

in the towns), and they form 

a very substantial and good 

element of the population". 

To enumerate even by 
names the aboriginal tribes 
woxild be tedious and unavail- 
ing. Among the more notable 
are the Doracho-Changuina, 
of Chiriqui, light of color, 
believing that the Great Spirit 
lived in the volcano of Chiri- 
qui, and occasionally showing 
their displeasure with him by 

shooting arrows at the mountain. The Guaymies, 
of whom perhaps 6000 are left, are the tribe that 
buried with their dead the curious golden images 
that were once plentiful in the bazaars of Panama, 
but are now hard to find. They have a pleasant 



inhabiting the Darien. All were, and some are, 
believed still to be cannibals. Eleven lesser tribes 
are grouped under this general name. As a rule 





THE PEARL ISI.AMJ VILLAGE OF SABOGA 



practice of putting a calabash of water and some 
plantains by a man they think dying and leaving 
him to his fate, usually in some lonesome part of 
the jungle. The Cunas or Caribs are the tribes 



NATIVE VILLAGE AT CAPERA 

they are small and muscular. Most of them have 
abandoned their ancient gaudy dress, and so far as 
they are clothed at all wear ordinary cotton clothing. 
Painting the face and body is still practiced. The 
dead often are swung in hammocks from trees and 
supplied with fresh provisions 
until the cords rot and the body 
falls to the ground. Then the 
spirit's journey to the promised 
land is held to be ended and 
provisions are no longer needed. 
Sorcery and soothsaying are much 
in vogue, and the sorcerers who 
correspond to the medicine men 
of our North American Indians 
will sometimes shut themselves 
up in a small hut shrieking, 
beating tom-toms and imitating 
the cries of wild animals. When 
they emerge in a sort of self- 
hypnotized state they are held to 
be peculiarly fit for prophesying. 
All the Indians drink heavily, 
and the white man's rum is to some extent displacing 
the native drink of chica. This is manufactured by 
the women, usually the old ones, who sit in a circle 
chewing yam roots or cassava and expectorating 



3IO 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



the saliva into a large bowl in the center. This 
ferments and is made the basis of a highly intoxicat- 
ing drink. Curiously enough the same drink is 
similarly made in far-away Samoa. The dutiful 
wives after thus manufacturing the material upon 
which their spouses get drunk complete their service 
by swinging their hammocks, sprinkling them with 
cold water and fanning 
them as they lie in a 
stupor. Smoking is an- 
other social custom, but 
the cigars are mere hol- 
low rolls of tobacco and 
the lighted end is held 
in the mouth. Among 
some of the tribes in 
Comagre the bodies of 
the caciques, or chief 
men, were preserved after 
death by surrounding 
them with a ring of fire 
built at a sufficient dis- 
tance to gradually dry 
the body until skin and 
bone alone remained. 

The Indians with 
whom the visitor to 
Panama most frequently 
comes into contact are 
those of the San Bias 
or ManzaniUo country. 
These Indians hover 
curiously about the 
bounds of civilization, 
and approach without 
actually crossing them. 
They are fishermen and 
sailors, and many of their 
young men ship on the 
vessels touching at Colon, 

and, after visiting the chief seaports of the United 
States, and even of France and England, are 
swallowed up again in their tribe without affecting 
its customs to any appreciable degree. If in their 
wanderings they gain new ideas or new desires they 
are not apparent. The man who silently offers you 
fish, fruits or vegetables from his cayuca on the 
beach at Colon may have trod the docks at Havre 




P)tolo by H. Pillicr rourh.u Satuuinl i;u.Hjr(n! u 

A CHOCO INDIAN IN FULL COSTUME 
His cuffs are silver-; his head adorned with flowers 



or Liverpool, the levee at New Orleans or wandered 
along South Street in New York. Not a word of 
that can you coax from him. Even in proffering 
his wares he does so with the fewest possible words, 
and an air of lofty indifference. Uncas of the 
Leather-Stocking Tales was no more silent and 
self-possessed a red-skin than he. 

In physiognomy the 
San Bias Indians are 
heavy of feature and 
stocky of frame. Their 
color is dark olive, with 
no trace of the negro 
apparent, for it has been 
their unceasing study for 
centuries to retain their 
racial purity. Their 
features are regular and 
pleasing and, among the 
children particularly, a 
high order of beauty is 
often found. To get a 
glimpse of their women 
is almost impossible, and 
a photograph of one is 
practically unknown. If 
overtaken on the water, 
to which they often re- 
sort in their cayucas, the 
women will wrap their 
clothing about their faces, 
rather heedless of what 
other portions of their 
bodies may be exposed, 
and make all speed for 
the shore. These women 
paint their faces in glar- 
ing colors, wear nose 
rings, and always blacken 
their teeth on being 
married. Among them more pains is taken with 
clothing than among most of the savage Indians, 
many of their garments being made of a sort of 
applique work in gaudy colors, with figures, often 
in representation of the human form, cut out and 
inset in the garment. 

So determined are the men of this tribe to main- 
tain its blood untarnished by any admixture whatso- 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SAN BLAS TRIBE 



311 



ever, that they long made it 
an invariable rule to expel 
every white man from their 
territory at nightfall. Of late 
years there has been a very 
slight relaxation of this sever- 
ity. Dr. Henri Pittier of the 
United States Department of 
Agriculture, one of the best- 
equipped scientific explorers 
in the tropics, several of whose 
photographs elucidate this 
volume, has lived much among 
the San Bias and the Cuna- 
Cuna Indians and won their 
friendship. 

It was the ancestors of 
these Indians who made wel- 
come Patterson and his luck- 
less Scotchmen, and in the 
200 years that have clasped 
they have clung to the tradi- 
tion of friendship for the 
Briton and hatred for the 
Spaniard. Dr. Pittier reports 
Tiaving found that Queen Vic- 
toria occupied in their villages 
the position of a patron saint, 
and that they refused to 
believe his assertion that she 
■was dead. His account of the 
■attitude of these Indians to- 
ward outsiders, recently 
printed in the National Geo- 
graphic Magazine, is an 
authoritative statement on the 
subject : 

"The often circulated re- 
ports of the difficulty of pene- 
trating into the territory of 
the Cuna-Ctma are true only 
in part " , he says. ' ' The back- 
Tvoods aborigines, in the val- 
leys of the Bayano and Chu- 

•cunaque rivers, have nourished to this day their 
liatred for all strangers, especially those of Spanish 
lalood. That feeling is not a reasoned one: it is 
the instinctive distrust of the savage for the un- 



'Aw %v 




The dresses 



SOME SAN BLAS GIRLS 
are covered with elaborate designs in appliquiS work 

known or inexplicable, intensified in this particular 
case by the tradition of a long series of wrongs at 
the hands of the hated Spaniards. 

"So they feel that isolation is their best policy, 



'312 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



and it would not be safe 
for anybody to penetrate 
into their forests without 
a strong escort and con- 
tinual watchfulness. 
Many instances of mur- 
ders, some confirmed and 
others only suspected, 
are on record, and even 
the natives of the San 
Bias coast are not a 
little afraid of their 
brothers of the moun- 
tains. 

"Of late, however, con- 
ditions seem to have bet- 
tered, owing to a more 
frequent intercourse with 
the surrounding settle- 
ments. A negro of La 
Palma, at the mouth of 
the Tuyra River, told 
me of his crossing, some 
time ago, from the latter 
place to Chepo, through 
the Chucunaque and 
Bayano territories, 
gathering rubber as he 
went along with his party. 
At the headwaters of the 



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Fnolo by n 1 L ouri ii/ uj \ alwnal Ocof/raii/tic Magazine 

CHIEF DON CARLOS OF THE CHOCOES AND HIS SON 



and then let their prison- 
ers go with the warning 
not to come again. 

"The narrative of that 
expedition was supple- 
mented by the reflection 
of an old man among the 
hearers that twenty years 
ago none of the party 
would have come out 
alive. 

"Among the San Bias 
Indians, who are at a far 
higher level of civiliza- 
tion, the exclusion of 
aliens is the result of 
well-founded political 
reasons. Their respected 
traditions are a long 
record of proud inde- 
pendence; they have 
maintained the purity of 
their race and enjoyed 
freely for hundreds of 
years every inch of their 
territory. They feel that 
the day the negro or the 
white man acquires a 
foothold in their midst 
these privileges will be- 

This is why, without 



Canaza River he and his companions were held up come a thing of the past. 

by the 'bravos', who contented themselves with undue hostility to strangers, they discourage their 

taking away the rubber and part of the equipment incursions. 





















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Courttisy of National Geographic Magazine 

THE VILLAGE OF PLAYON GRAND, EIGHTY-FIVE MILES EAST OF THE CANAL 
The houses are about 15OX 50 feet and each shehers 16 to 20 families. The members of each family herd together in a single room 



AN EXCLUSIVE ABORIGINAL PEOPLE 



313 







1 


■ 




1 




1 


tk^=' 


1 



"Their means of persuasion 
are adjusted to the importance 
of the intruder. They do not 
hesitate to shoot at any negro 
of the nearby settlements 
poaching on their cocoanuts 
or other products; the trader 
or any occasional visitor is 
very seldom allowed to stay 
ashore at night ; the adventur- 
ers who try to go prospecting 
into Indian territory are in- 
variably caught and shipped 
back to the next Panamanian 
port". 

Among the men of the San 
Bias tribe the land held by 
their people is regarded as a 

Photo hy H. PUHer Cmmesy Nail Geographic Magazine saCrcd trUSt, bequeathed tO 

SAN BLAS WOMAN IN DAILY GARB ^^cm by their anccstors and 

to be handed down by them 
to the remotest posterity. 
During the early days of the 
Canal project it was desired to 
dig sand from a beach in the 
San Bias country. A small 
United States man-of-war 
was sent thither to broach the 
subject to the Indians, and the 
Captain held parley with the 
chief. After hearing the plea 
and all the arguments and 
promises with which it was 
strengthened the old Indian 
courteously refused the privi- 
lege: 

"He who made this land", 
said he, "made it for Cuna- 
Cuna who live no longer, for 
those who are here today and 
also for the ones to come. 
So it is not ours only and we 
could not sell it". 

To this decision the tribe 
adhered, and the wishes of the 
aborigines have been respected. . „ „. , 

° -^ Phow by H. putter Courtesy National Gcogravhic Magazine 

it has been the policy 01 the daughter of chief don carlos 

United States to avoid any This young girl is merry, plump and fond of finger ring 





Photo by It. ruU'.f ' I'ijrlt^y Xat'l Geographtc Magazine 
A GIRL OF THE CHOCO TRIBE 

possibility of giving offense to 
the native population of the 
Isthmus, and even a request 
from the chief that the war 
vessel that brought the nego- 
tiator on his fruitless errand, 
should leave was acceded to.. 
It is quite unlikely, however, 
that the Indians will be able 
to maintain their isolation 
much longer. Already there 
are signs of its breaking down. 
While I was in Panama they 
sent a request that a mission- 
ary, a woman it is true, who. 
had been much among them, 
should come and live with them 
permanently. They also ex- 
pressed a desire that she should 
bring her melodeon, thus giv- 
ing new illustration to the 
poetic adage, "Music hath 
charms to soothe the savage 
breast". Perhaps the phono- 
graph may in time prove the 
open sesame to many savage 
bosoms. Among this people it 
s is the women who cling most 



314 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




NATIVE BRIDGE OVER THE CALDERA RIVER 

tenaciously to the primitive customs, as might be 
expected, since they have been so assiduously 
guarded against the wiles of the world. But Cath- 
olic missionaries have made some headway in the 
country, and at Nargana schools for girls have been 
opened under auspices of the church. It is probably 
due to the feminine influence that the San Bias men 
return so unfailingly to primitive customs after the 
voyages that have made them familiar with civiliza- 
tion. If the women yield to the desire for novelty 
the splendid isolation of the San Bias will not long 
endure. Perhaps that would be unfortunate, for all 
other primitive peoples who have surrendered to the 
wiles of the white men have suffered and disap- 
peared. 

In their present state the San Bias are relatively 
rich. All the land belongs to all the people — that 
is why the old chief declined to sell the sandy 
beach. There is a sort of private property in im- 
provements. A banana plantation, a cocoanut 



grove or an orange tree planted and cared for, be- 
comes a positive possession handed down to de- 
scendants of the owner through the female line. 
Perhaps one reason for keeping the women so shut 
off from the world is that they are the real owners 
of all individual property. Ownership does not, 
however, attach to trees or plants growing wild; 
they are as much communal as the land. So the 
vegetable ivory, balata and cocoanuts which form 
the marketable products are gathered by whomso- 
ever may take the trouble. Land that has been 
tilled belongs to the one who improved it. If he 
let it lapse into wilderness it reverts to the com- 
munity. The San Bias Indians have the essence 
of the single tax theory without the tax. 

They have a hazily defined religious system, and 
have curiously reversed the position held by their 
priests or sorcerers. These influential persons are 
not representatives of the spirit of good, but of the 
bad spirit. Very logically the San Bias savages 
hold that any one may represent the good spirit by 
being himself good, and that the unsupported prayers 
of such a one are sure to be heard. But to reach the 
devil, to induce that malicious practitioner of evil 
to rest from his persecutions and to abandon the 
pursuit of the unfortunate, it is desirable to have as 
intermediary some one who possesses his confidence 
and high regard. Hence the strong position of the 
sorcerers in the villages. The people defer to them 
on the principle that it is well to make friends with 
"the Mammon of Unrighteousness". 

Polygamy is permitted among these Indians, but 
little practiced. Even the chiefs whose high estate 
gives them the right to more than one wife seldom 
avail themselves of the privilege. The women, as 
in most primitive tribes, are the hewers of wood and 
drawers of water. Dress is rather a more serious 
matter with them than among some of the other 
Indians, the Chocoes for example. They wear 
as a rule blouses and two skirts, where other denizens 
of the Darien dispense with clothing above the waist 
altogether. Their hair is usually kept short. The 
nose ring is looked upon as indispensable, and other 
ornaments of both gold and silver are worn by both 
sexes. Americans who have had much to do with 
the Indians of the Darien always comment on the 
extreme reticence shown by them in speaking of 
their golden ornaments, or the spot whence they 



FAMILY QUARTERS OF THE SAN BLAS 



315 



were obtained. It is as though vague traditions 
had kept aHve the story of the pestilence of fire and 
sword which ravaged their land when the Spaniards 
swept over it in search of the yellow metal. Gold is 
in the Darien in plenty. Everybody knows that, 
and the one or two mines near the rivers now being 
worked afford sufficient proof that the region is 
auriferous. But no Indian will tell of the existence 
of these mines, nor will any guide a white man to the 
spot where it is rumored gold is to be found. Seem- 
ingly ineradicably fixed in the inner consciousness 
of the Indian is the conviction that the white man's 
lust for the yellow metal is the greatest menace that 
confronts the well-being of himself and his people. 

The San Bias are decidedly a town-dwelling tribe. 
They seem to hate solitude and even today, in their 
comparatively reduced state, build villages of a size 
that make understandable Balboa's records of the 
size and state of the chief with whom he first fought, 
and then made friends. At Nargana are two large 
islands, fairly covered with spacious houses about 
150 feet long by 50^ broad. The ridge pole of the 
palm-thatched roof is 30 to 40 feet from the ground. 
A long corridor runs through the house longitudi- 
nally, and on either side the space is divided by up- 
right posts into square compartments, each of which 
is supposed to house an entire family. The side 
walls are made of wattled reeds caked with clay. 
One of these houses holds from sixteen to twenty 
families, and the edifices are packed so closely to- 
gether as to leave scarce room between for a razor- 
back hog to browse. The people within must be 
packed about as closely and the precise parental re- 
lationship sustained to each other by the various 
members of the family would be an interesting 
study. 

The Choco Indians are one of the smaller and 
least known tribes of the Darien. Prof. Pittier — 
who may without disrespect be described as the 
most seasoned "tropical tramp" of all Central 
America — described them so vividly that extracts" 
from his article in the National Geographic Maga- 
zine will be of interest : 

"Never, in our twenty-five years of tropical ex- 
perience, have we met with such a sun-loving, bright 
and trusting people, living nearest to nature and 
ignoring the most elementary wiles of so-called 
civilization. They are several hundred in number 




Photo by H. Fiutcr Courusy National Gconrapliic Magazine 

GUAYMI INDIAN MAN 

Note the tattoed marking of face and the negroid lips 

and their dwellings are scattered along the mean- 
drous Sambu and its main reaches, always at short 
distance, but never near enough to each other to form 
real villages. Like their houses, their small planta- 
tions are close to the river, but mostly far enough 
to escape the eye of the casual passer-by. 

"Dugouts drawn up on the beach and a narrow 
trail breaking the reed wall at the edge of the bank 
are the only visible signs of human presence, except 
at the morning hours and near sunset, when a crowd 
of women and children will be seen playing in the 
water, and the men, armed with their bows and 
long harpooned arrows, scrutinizing the deeper 
places for fish or looking for iguanas and crabs 
hidden in the holes of the banks. 

"Physically the Chocoes are a fine and healthy 
race. They are tall, as compared with the Cuna- 
Cuna, well proportioned, and with a graceful bear- 
ing. The men have wiry limbs and faces that are at 
once kind and energetic, while as a rule the girls are 
plump, fat, and full of mischief. The grown women 
preserve their good looks and attractiveness much 



3i6 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



longer than is generally the case in primitive peo- 
ples, in which their sex bears the heaviest share of 
every day's work. 

"Both males and females have unusually fine 
white teeth, which they sometimes dye black by 
chewing the shoots of one of the numerous wild pep- 
pers growing in the forests. The skin is of a rich 
olive-brown color and, as usual, a little lighter in 
women and children. Though all go almost naked, 
they look fairer than the San Bias Cunas, and some 
of the women would compare 
advantageously in this respect 
with certain Mediterranean 
types of the white race. 

"The hair is left by all to 
grow to its natural length, except 
in a few cases, in which the men 
have it cropped at the neck. It 
is coarse and not jet black, as 
reported of most Indians, but 
with a reddish hue, which is 
better noticed when the sun is 
playing through the thick mass. 

"In young children it de- 
cidedly turns at times to a blond 
color, the only difference from 
the Caucasian hair being the 
pronounced coarseness of the 
former. As there are no white 
people living within a radius 
of fifty miles, but only ne- 
groes, mulattoes and zambos, 
this peculiarity cannot be ex- 
plained by miscegenation, 
and may therefore be con- 
sidered as a racial feature of the Clioco tribe. 

"In men the every-day dress consists of a scanty 
clout, made of a strip of red calico about one foot 
broad and five feet long. This clout is passed in 
front and back of the body over a string tied around 
the hips, the forward extremity being left longer and 
flowing like an apron. On feast days the string is 
replaced by a broad band of white beads. Around 
the neck and chest they wear thick cords of the same 
beads and on their wrists broad silver cuffs. Hats 
are not used ; the hair is usually tied with a red rib- 
bon and often adorned with the bright flowers of the 
forest. 




Photo i)li H . PitticT Counesif National GcograpJtic Maijazine 
INDIAN GIRL OF THE DARIEN 



"The female outfit is not less simple, consisting of 
a piece of calico less than three feet wide and about 
nine feet long, wrapped around the lower part of the 
body and reaching a little below the knees. This is 
all, except that the neck is more or less loaded with 
beads or silver coins. But for this the women dis- 
play less coquetry than the men, which may be 
because they feel sufficiently adorned with their 
mere natural charms. Fondness for cheap rings is, 
however, common to both sexes, and little children 
often wear earrings or pendants. 
"The scantiness of the clothing 
is remedied very effectually by 
face and body painting, in which 
black and red colors are used, 
the first exclusively for daily 
wear. At times men and women 
are painted black from the waist 
down; at other times it is the 
whole body or only the hands 
and feet, etc., all according to 
the day's fashion, as was ex- 
plained by one of our guides. 
For feast days the paintings are 
an elaborate and artistic affair, 
consisting of elegantly drawn 
lines and patterns — red and black 
or simply black — which clothe 
the body as effectually as any 
costly dress. 

"From the above one might 

conclude that cleanliness and 

modesty are not the rule among 

the Chocos. As a matter of 

fact, the first thing they do in 

the morning is to jump into the near-by river, and 

these ablutions are repeated several times in the 

course of the day. 

"The kitchen utensils are always thoroughly 
washed before using, and, contrary to our former 
experience, their simple dishes, prepared mostly in 
our presence, looked almost always inviting. Dur- 
ing our stay among these good people nothing was 
noticed that would hurt the most delicate sense of 
decency. 

"The Chocoes seem to be exclusively monogamist, 
and both parents surround their babies with tender 
care, being mindful, however, to prepare them early 



CUSTOMS OF THE CHOCOS AND GUAYMIES 



317 



for the hard and strugghng hfe ahead of them. 
Small bows and arrows, dexterously handled by tiny 
hands, are the favorite toys of the boys, while the 
girls spend more time in the water playing with 
miniature dugouts, washing, and swimming. The 
only dolls seen among them were imported ones, 
and they seemed to be as much in favor among 
grown women as among children. These latter go 
naked until they are about five years old, when the 
girls receive a large handkerchief to be used as a 
'paruma', or skirt, and the 
boys a strip of some old maternal 
dress for an 'antia' or clout. 

"The Chocoes are very in- 
dustrious. During the dry spells 
their life, of course, is an out- 
of-door one, planting and watch- 
ing their crops, hunting, fishing 
and canoeing. But when the 
heavy rains come they stay at 
home, weaving baskets of all 
kinds — a work in which the 
women are proficient — making 
ropes and hammocks, carving 
dishes, mortars, stools, and other 
objects out of tree trunks". 

In the country which will be 
traversed by the Panama- David 
Railroad are found the Guay- 
mies, the only primitive people 
living in large numbers outside 
the Darien. There are about 
5000 of them, living for the 
most part in the valley of 
Mirando which lies high up in 
the Cordilleras, and in a region 
cut off from the plains. Here 
they have successfully defended their independence 
against the assaults of both whites and blacks. To 
remain in their country without consent of the Great 
Chief is practically impossible, for they are savage 
fighters and in earlier days it was rare to see a man 
whose body was not covered with scars. It is 
apparent that in some ways progress has destroyed 
their industries and made the people less rather 
than more civilized, for they now buy cloth, arms, 
tools, and utensils which they were once able to 
make. At one time they were much under the 




Photo by H. Pilticr CouTlcsy National Geographic Maoazine 

CHOCO INDIAN OF SAMBU VALLEY 

Silver beads about his neck and leg. Face painted 
in glaring colors 



influence of the Catholic missionaries, but of late 
mission work has languished in wild Panama and 
perhaps the chief relic of that earlier religious 
influence is the fact that the women go clothed in 
a single garment. This simple raiment, not needed 
for warmth, seems to be prized, for if caught in 
a rainstorm the women will quickly strip off their 
clothing, wrap it in a large banana or palm leaf 
that it may not get wet, and continue their work, 
or their play, in nature's garb. 

It is said, too, that when 
strangers are not near clothes 
are never thought of. The men 
follow a like custom, and in- 
variably when pursuing a quarry 
strip off their trousers, tying 
their shirts about their loins. 
Trousers seem to impede their 
movements, and if a lone traveler 
in Chiriqui comes on a row of 
blue cotton trousers tied to the 
bushes he may be sure that a 
band of Guaymies is somewhere 
in the neighborhood pursuing 
an ant bear or a deer. 

As a rule these Indians — men 
or women — are not pleasing to 
the eye. The lips are thick, the 
nose flat and broad, the hair 
coarse and always jet black. 
Yet the children are not infre- 
quently really beautiful. Any 
traveler in Panama who forsakes 
the beaten track up and down 
the Canal Zone will be impressed 
by the wide extent to which 
beauty is found among the 
children, whatever their race or combination of 
races. But the charm soon fades. It is seldom 
that one sees a mature woman who is attractive 
to Caucasian ej^es. Among the women of the 
Guaymies face painting is practiced only on great 
occasions, black, red and white being the usual 
colors. The men go painted at all times, the in- 
variable pattern being a sort of inverted V, with the 
apex between the eyes, and the two arms extending 
to points, half an inch or so from the comers of the 
mouth. The lips are colored to make them seem 



3i8 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



thicker than normal, and heavy shadows are painted 
in under the eyes. 

Among some tribes the wealth of a man is reck- 
oned by the number of his cattle ; among the Guay- 
mies by the number of his wives. For this reason, 
perhaps, the attainment of marriageable age is an 
occasion- of much festivity for children of both sexes. 
The boy is exposed to tests of his manly and 
war-like qualities, and, 
in company with his fel- 
lows of equal age, is 
taken by the wisemen 
of the tribe into the 
solitude of the forest 
that by performing tasks 
assigned to him he may 
prove himself a man. 
There, too, they learn 
from the elders, who go 
masked and crowned 
with wreaths, the tradi- 
tions of their tribes told 
in rude chants like the 
Norse sagas. Until this 
ceremony has been ful- 
filled the youth has no 
name whatsoever. After 
it he is named and cele- 
brates his first birthday. 

The ceremonies in 
which the girls play the 
chief part are less elab- 
orate, but one would 
think rather painful, 
since they include the 
breaking of a front tooth 
in sign that they are 
ready for marriage. They marry young and mothers 
at twelve years are not uncommon. 

Once a year the Guaymies have a great tribal 
feast — "balceria" the Spaniards call it. Word is 
sent to all outlying huts and villages by a mystic 
symbol of knotted rags, which is also tied to the 
branches of the trees along the more frequented 
trails. On the appointed day several hundred will 
gather on the banks of some river in which a general 
bath is taken, with much frolicking and horseplay. 
Then the women employ several hours in painting 




the men with red and blue colors, following the 
figures still to be seen on the old pottery, after 
which the men garb themselves uncouthly in bark 
or in pelts like children "dressing up" for a frolic. 
At night is a curious ceremonial dance and game 
called balsa, in which the Indians strike each other 
with heavy sticks, and are knocked down amid the 
pile of broken boughs. The music — if it could 

be so called — the incan- 
tations of the wisemen, 
the frenzy of the dancers, 
all combine to produce 
a sort of self-hypnotism, 
during which the Indians 
feel no pain from injuries 
which a day later often 
prove to be very serious.: 
There are a multitude 
of distinct Indian tribes 
on the Isthmus, each 
with its own tribal gov- 
ernment, its distinctive 
customs and its allotted 
territory, though boun- 
daries are, of course, ex- 
ceedingly vague and the 
territories overlap. The 
Smithsonian pamphlet 
enumerates 21 ' such 
tribes in the Darien re- 
gion alone. But there 
seems to be among them 
no such condition of con- 
tinual tribal warfare as 
existed between our 
North American Indians 
as long as they survived 
in any considerable numbers the aggressions of the 
white settlers. It is true that the historian of Bal- 
boa's expedition records that the great leader was 
besought by chieftains to assist them in their af- 
frays with rival tribes, and made more than one 
alliance by giving such assistance. But the later 
atrocities perpetrated by the Spaniards seem to 
have had the effect of uniting the Indians in a tacit 
peaceful bond against the whites. Picturesque and 
graphic as are the writings of men like Esquemelin, 
the Fray d'Acosta and Wafer, who saw the Indians 



PANAMANIAN FATHER AND CHILD 



PECULIARITIES OF THE DARIEN INDIANS 



319 



in the days of their earliest experience 
with the sort of civihzation that 
Pedrarias and Pizarro brought to 
their villages, they do not bear more 
convincing evidence of the savagery 
of the invaders, than is afforded by 
the sullen aloofness with which the 
Darien Indians of today regard 
white men of any race. More than 
the third and fourth generation have 
passed away but the sins of the 
Spaniards are still recalled among 
a people who have no written records 
whatsoever, and the memory or 
tradition causes them to withhold 
their friendship from the remotest 
descendants of the historic oppressors. 
There seems to have been no 
written language, nor even any system 
of hieroglyphics among the tribes of 
Panama, a fact that places them far 
below our North American Indians 
in the scale of mental development. 
On the other hand in weaving and 
in fashioning articles for domestic 
use they were in advance of the 
North American aborigines. Their 




Photo bv H. PUHer 

Courtesy National Geographic Magazine 

CHOCO INDIAN IN EVERY-DAY 
DRESS 



" squaw-man " who figures so largely 
in our own southwestern Indian 
country is unknown there. Un- 
questionably during the feverish 
days of the Spaniards, hunt for 
gold the tribes were frightfully 
thinned out, and even today sections 
of the country which writers of Bal- 
boa's time describe as thickly popu- 
lated are desert and untenanted. 
Yet much land is still held by its 
aboriginal owners, and unless the 
operation of the Canal shall turn 
American settlement that way will 
continue so to be held. The Pana- 
manian has not the energy to dis- 
lodge the Indians nor to till their lands 
if he should possess them. 

Many studies of the Panama In- 
dians as a body, or of isolated tribes, 
have been made by explorers or sci- 
entists, and mainly by French or Span- 
ish students. The Smithsonian 
Institution catalogues forty-seven 
publications dealing with the sub- 
ject. But there is an immense mine 
of anthropological information yet 
to be worked in the Isthmus. It is not to be 



domestic architecture was more substantial, and 

they were less nomadic, the latter fact being prob- acquired readily or without heavy expenditure 

ably due to the slight encouragement given to of energy, patience and money. A thoroughly 



wandering by the jungle. The great houses of the 
San Bias Indians in their villages recall the ' ' Long 
houses" of the Iroquois as described by Parkman. 

Thus far what we call civilization has dealt less 
harshly with the Indians of the Isthmus than with 
our own. They have at least survived it and kept 
a great part of their territory for their own. The 



scientific exploring expedition to unravel the 
riddle of the Darien, to count and describe the 
Indian tribes of the Isthmus, and to record and 
authenticate traditions dating back to the Spanish 
days, would be well worth the while of a geographical 
society, a university or some patron of exploring 
enterprises. 



CHAPTER XVII 



SOCIAL LIFE ON THE CANAL ZONE 



ROM ocean to ocean the territory 
which is called the Canal Zone is 
about forty-three miles long, 
ten miles wide and contains 
about 436 square miles, about 
ninety-five of which are under 
the waters of the Canal, and 
Mirafiores and Gatun Lakes. 
It is bounded on the north by 
the Caribbean Sea, on the south 
by the Pacific Ocean, and on the 
east and west by the Republic of Panama. It 
traverses the narrowest part of Panama, the waist 
so to speak, and has been taken out of that body 
politic by the diplomatic surgeons as neatly as 
though it had been an obnoxious vermiform ap- 
pendix. Its territory does not terminate at low 
water-mark, but extends three marine miles out to 




sea, and, as I write, a question of jurisdiction has 
arisen between the two Republics — hardly twin 
Republics — of Panama and the United States con- 
cerning jurisdiction over three malefactors captured 
by the Zone police in a motor boat out at sea. It 
may be noted in passing that Panama is properly 
tenacious of its rights and dignity, and that cases 
of conflicting jurisdiction are continually arising 
when any offender has only to foot it a mile or two 
to be out of the territory in which his offense was 
committed. The police officials of the Zone affect 
to think that the Panama authorities are inclined 
to deal lightly with native offenders who commit 
robbery or murder on the Zone and then stroll 
across the line to be arrested in their native State. 
There was a quarrel on while I was on the Zone 
over the custody of a Panamanian who killed his 
wife, with attendant circumstances of peculiar 




A SQUAD OF CANAL ZONE POLICE OFFICERS 
320 



THE POPULATION OF THE CANAL ZONE 



321 



brutality, and then balked the vengeance of the 
Zone criminal authorities by getting himself arrested 
in Panama. "We want to show these fellows", 
remarked a high police ofBcial of the Zone, "that 
if they do murder in our territory we are going to 
do the hanging". That seemed a laudable purpose — 
that is if hanging is ever laudable — but the Panama 
officials are quite as determined to keep the wheels 
of their criminal law moving. The proprietors of 
machines like to see them run — which is one of the 
reasons why too many battleships are not good for 
a nation. 

To return, however, to the statistics of the Zone. 
Its population is shifting, of course, and varies 
somewhat in its size according to the extent to 
which labor is in demand. 
The completion of a part 
of the work occasionally 
reduces the force. 
In January, 1912, the 
total population of the 
Zone, according to the 
official census, was 62,- 
810; at the same time, 
by the same authority, 
there were employed by 
the Canal Commission 
and the Panama Rail- 
road 36,600 men. These 
figures emphasize the fact 
that the working force 
on the Zone is made up 

mainly of unmarried men, for a working population 
of 36,600 would, under the conditions existing in 
the ordinary American community, give a popula- 





QUARTERS OF A BACHELOR TEACHER 





"^■f^ 


r^ ^-^"^ri 


,>*^i 


■E|HR^ 






1^ 






^W'-^Z-" ^^^ 


^^3 






5' "'^^^^MWUM^^V^Si^ 


^^Sp| 




^ss 




^^^ 



A PRIMITIVE SUGAR MILL 



VINE-CLAD FAMILY QUARTERS 

tion of well over 100,000. Though statistics are not 
on hand, and would probably be impossible to compile 
among the foreign laborers, it is probable that not 
more than one man in four on the Zone is married. 

From this situation it 
results that the average 
maiden who visits the 
Zone for a brief holiday 
goes rushing home to get 
her trousseau ready be- 
fore some young engi- 
neer's next annual vaca- 
tion shall give him time 
to go like a young 
Lochinvar in search of 
his bride. Indeed, the 
life of the Zone for many 
reasons has been singu- 
larly conducive to matri- 
mony, and as a game 
preserve for the exciting 
sport of husband-hunting, it has been unexcelled. 

Perhaps it may be as well to turn aside from the 
orderly and informative discussion of the statistics 
of the Zone to expand a little further here upon 
the remarkable matrimonial phenomena it presented 
in its halcyon days — for it must be remembered that 
even as I am writing, that society, which I found 
so hospitable and so admirable, has begun to dis- 
integrate. Marriage, it must be admitted, is a 
somewhat cosmopolitan passion.* It attacks spig- 
gotty and gringo alike. In an earlier chapter I have 
described how the low cost of living enabled Miguel 
of the Chagres country to set up a home of his 
own. Let us consider how the benevolent arrange- 
ments made by the Isthmian Canal Commission 
impelled a typical American boy to the same step. 



322 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



Probably it was more a desire for experience 
and adventure than any idea of increased financial 
returns that led young Jack Maxon to seek a job 
in engineering on the Canal. Graduated from the 
engineering department of a State university, with 
two years or so of active experience in the field, 
Jack was a fair type of young American — clean, 
wholesome, healthy, technically trained, ambitious 
for his future but quite solicitious about the pleas- 
tires of the present, as becomes a youth of twenty- 
three. 

The job he obtained seemed at the outset quite 
ideal. In the States he could earn about $225 a 
month. The day he took his number on the Canal 
Zone he began to draw $250 a month. And that 
$250 was quite as good as $300 at home. To begin 
with he had no room-rent to pay, but was assigned 
comfortable if not elegant quarters, which he shared 




MAIN STREET AT GORGONA 



with one other man," carefully screened and protected 
from all insects by netting, lighted by electricity, 
with a shower-bath handy and all janitor or chamber- 
maid service free. Instead of a boarding-house 
table or a cheap city restaurant, he took his meals 
at a Commission hotel at a charge of thirty cents 
a meal. People say that the fare could not be dupli- 



cated in the States for seventy-five cents, but I 
prefer to quote that statement rather than to make 
it on my own authority. By taking two meals a 
day and making the third of fruit, or a sandwich 
at a Y. M. C. A. clubhouse, he would cut his restau- 
rant charges to $18 a month; the whole' three meals 
would come to $27.80, so however voracious his 
appetite Bachelor Jack's charges for food are light 
and for shelter nothing. Clothing troubles him 
little; his working clothes of khaki, and several 
suits of white cotton duck will cost him less than 
one woolen suit such as he must have "up home". 
All seasons are alike on the Zone, and there is no 
need of various types of hats, overcoats and under- 
wear. 

All in all Bachelor Jack thinks he has come in 
for a good thing. Moreover, he gets a vacation of 
forty-two days on pay, a sick leave of thirty days 

on pay — and 
the sanitarium 
on the Island 
of Taboga be- 
ing a very 
pleasant resort 
few fail to have 
slight ailments 
requiring pre- 
cisely thirty 
days' rest — 
and nine holi- 
days also with 
pay. All in all 
Jack is neither 
overworked 
nor underpaid. 
His letters to 
his chums at 
home tell no 
stories of ad- 
versity but 
rather indi- 
cate that he is enjoying exceedingly good times. 
With reasonable care he will have ample means 
for really lavish expenditures on his vacation. 
Indeed it would require rather unreasonable 
effort to spend an engineer's salary on the zone 
unless it went in riotous living in Panama City 
or Colon. ..-;:.: 



THE TEMPTATIONS TO MATRIMONY ON THE ZONE 



323 



But a vision of better things opens before him — 
is always spread out before his enraptured vision. 
His friend who came down a year or two before him 
and who is earning only a little bit more money 
sets a standard 'of living which arouses new ambi- 
tions in Jack's mind. His friend is married. In- 
stead of one room shared with one or more tired 
engineers subject 
to grouches, he has 
a four-room apart- 
ment with bath — 
really a five-room 
fiat, for the broad 
sheltered balconies 
shaded by vines 
form the real 
living room. In- 
stead of eating at 
the crowded, noisy 
hotels, he has his 
quiet dining-room, 
and menus dic- 
tated by individual 
taste instead of by 
the mechanical 
methods of a Chief 
of Subsistence. 
Practically every- 
thing that can be 
done for the house- 
hold by official hands is done free by the Com- 
mission — free rent, free light, free janitor service, 
free distilled water, free fuel for cooking — the 
climate saves that bugbear of married life at home, 
the annual coal bill. Moreover the flat or house 
comes to its tenant freely furnished. The smallest 
equipment supplied consists of a range, two kitchen 
chairs, a double bed, a mosquito bar, two pillows, 
a chiffonier, a double dresser, a double mattress, 
a dining table, six dining chairs, a sideboard, a 
bed-room mat, two center tables and three wicker 
porch chairs. This equipment is for the moderately 
paid employees who live in four-family quarters. 
The outfit is made more comprehensive as salaries 
increase. 

Housekeepers must buy their own tableware, 
bedclothes, light furniture and bric-a-brac. But 
here again the paternal Commission comes to the 



rescue, for these purchases, and all others needful 
for utility, comfort or beauty, are made at the Com- 
missary stores, where goods are sold practically at 
cost. Moreover, there is no protective tariff collected 
on imported goods and it would take another article 
to relate the rhapsodies of the Zone women over 
the prices at which they can buy Boulton tableware, 




IN THE LOBBY OF A Y. M. C. A. CLUB 



Irish linen, Swiss and Scandinavian delicatessen, 
and French products of all sorts. And finall}^ to 
round out the privileges of married life on the Zone, 
medical service is free and little Tommy's slightest 
ill may be prescribed for without fear of the doctor's 
bill — though, indeed, the children you see romping 
in the pleasant places do not look as though they 
ever needed a prescription or a pill. 

So Jack looks from his bachelor quarters over 
toward Married Row and it looks good to him. 
His amusements are but limited and his life does 
verge on the monotonous. His only place of recrea- 
tion is the Y. M. C. A., which, while filling the 
want admirably week days, is a bit solemn Sundaj-s 
— his only day off. The only theaters on the Zone 
are at Colon and Panama, and those are in the main 
only exhibitions of "movies." Moreover, the Pan- 
ama Railroad has thoughtfully arranged its schedule 



324 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




STREET SCENE IN CULEBRA 

SO that no Zone employee can go to the theater 
save on Saturday or Sunday night without staying 
out aU night. As Jack smokes in his half a room 
(perhaps only a quarter) or wrangles with his room- 
mate for place at the table lighted by one electric 
light his mind naturally turns toward the comforts 
enjoyed by his rnarried friends, and he sees himself 
greeted on his return from toil in the jungle or the 
"Cut" by a cool, trim divinity in white, instead of 
by a lumbering giant in muddy khaki, as weary, 
hungry and grouchy as he. 

Were he at home prudence would compel the 
consideration of cost. Here the paternal Com- 
mission puts a premium on matrimony. Very 
often, so often, indeed, that it is almost the rule. 
Jack returns from his first vacation home with a 
wife, or else coming alone is followed 
by the girl, and all goes merry as a 
marriage bell. But the time comes 
when Jack, a bachelor no longer, but 
a husband and perhaps a father, 
must leave the Isthmus. That time 
must come for all of them when the 
work is done. Enough, however, 
have already gone home to tell sad 
tales of the difficulty of readjusting 
themselves to normal conditions. 
Down comes the salary at least 
twenty-five per cent, up go living 
expenses at least thirty per cent. 
Nothing at home is free — coal, light, 
rent, and medical service least of all. 
Where Jack used to be lordly, he 
must be parsimonious; where he once 
bought untaxed in the markets of the 



world, he must buy in the most expensive of all 
market places, the United States. He absolutely 
cannot maintain at home the standard of life he 
adopted here, and the change with the endless little 
economies and pettinesses it entails gets on the 
nerves of both husband and wife. To start life 
thriftily and learn to be free-handed as prosperity 
increases is the natural line of development and does 
not mar happiness. But to be forced to pinch after 
a long period of lavishness is wearing. Back to the 
Zone come so many stories of romances begun by 
the Canal and ended in the divorce courts that one 
wonders if the paternalism of the Commission has 
been good for those who enjoyed it. 

But it has been good for the supreme purpose of 
digging the Canal and that was the one end sought. 

Let me return from this excursion into the domain 
of matrimonial philosophy and take up once again 
the account of the population of the Zone and its 
characteristics. It must be remembered that a very 
large part of the unskilled labor on the Canal is 
done by negroes from Jamaica and Barbadoes. 
But not all of it. The cleavage was not so distinct 
that the skilled labor could be classed as white, and 
the unskilled black, for among the latter were many 
Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians and the peoples of 
Southwestern Europe. The brilliant idea occurred 
to someone in the early days of the American cam- 
paign that as the West Indians, Panamanians and 




YOUNG AMERICA AT i'LAY 



THE GOLD AND SILVER EMPLOYEES 



325 




Photo hy Underwood & Underwood 

HINDOO MERCHANTS AT A ZONE TOWN 

Latin-Americans generally were accustomed to do 
their monetary thinking in terms of silver all day 
labor might be put on the silver pay roll; the more 
highly paid workers on a gold pay roll. Thence- 
forward the metal line rather than the color line 
was drawn. The latter indeed would have been 
difficult as the Latin-American peoples never drew 
it very definitely in their marital relations, with the 
result that a sort of twilight zone made any very 
positive differentiation between whites and blacks 
practically impossible. So despite Bobby Burns' 
historic dictum — 

"the gowd is but the guinea's stamp 
The man's the man for a' that", 

on the Zone the man is silver or gold according to 
the nature of his work and the size of his wages. 
Of gold employees there were in 1913, 5362, of 
silver 31,298, so it is easy to see which pay roll 
bore the names of the aristocracy. 

Practically all of the gold force are Americans. 
It is for them, in the main, that the cool, dark 
green houses with white trimmings, and all carefully 
screened in, are built. For them the buyers of the 
Commissary ransack the markets of the world, 
buying only the best. For them the Hotel Tivoli 
at Ancon and the Washington Hotel at Colon were 
built, though it is true that tourist trade rather than 
the patronage of the Canal workers supports them. 
For them are eighteen hotels, so-called — really only 
eating houses — scattered along the line, serving 
excellent meals for thirty cents each. Indeed, most 
of the features of Isthmian life which catch the eye 
of the tourist and make him think existence there 
quite ideal are planned to make the place attractive 



enough to keep the gold employees on the job. 
To him that hath shall be given, and it required 
greater inducements to anchor to a desk in Panama 
the man capable of earning a good salary at home 
than it did to hold the negro from Jamaica or 
Martinique, or the Spaniard or Italian steady to 
his job. 

In endeavoring to make things pleasant and easy 
for the gold employee the Isthmian Commission has 
made so many provisions for his comfort that many 
timid souls at home raised the cry of "socialism" 
and professed to discern in the system perfected by 
Col. Goethals the entering wedge that would split 




THE NATIVE MILLS GRIND SLOWLY 



326 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



in pieces the ancient system of free competition 
and the contract system for public work. While 
I was on the Zone a very distinguished financier 
of New York, a banker of the modern type with 
fingers in a host of industrial enterprises, delivered 
himself of this interesting forecast of the results of 
the education in collectivism which the United States 
government is giving to some thousands of men 
lipon the Isthmus: 

"The big thing is the spirit of paternalism, of 
modern socialism, of governmental ^parenthood, if 
you will, which is being engendered and nursed to 
full strength by Federal control of the Canal. This 
is no idle dream, and within five years, yes, within 
three years, it will begin to be felt in the United 
States. 

"Quietly large corporations are studying this 



feature of the unloading of the skilled, highly in- 
telligent Canal workers on the industries of the 
United States. There are thousands of trained 
employees of the Panama Canal Commission — which 
is to say of the United States government. When 
these well paid, lightly worked, well and cheaply 
fed men return to their native land they will form 
a powerful addition to the Socialist party. 

"These workmen will take up tasks for private 
corporations. They will find lower salaries, longer 
hours and a greatly increased cost of living. The 
conveniences and amusements which they have 
found either free or very cheap in the Canal Zone 
will be beyond the reach of many of them, and they 
are going to chafe under the changed conditions. 

"They will compare private or corporate owner- 
ship with government control as manifested in the 



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COMMISSION ROAD NEAR EMPIRE 



THE OBJECT LESSON OF THE CANAL ZONE 



327 



Canal works, and the comparison will inevitably 
result to the detriment of the methods followed in 
the United States. This will be in no sense an array 
of capital against labor. It will be a psychological 
and political movement for the betterment of the 
conditions of the trained worker irrespective of 
party or class 
or union affilia- 
tions. That is 
one reason that 
it will be so 
powerful. 

"These men 
will be engaged 
in industries 
subject to 
strikes and 
other industrial 
and sociological 
disturbances. 
They will give 
their fellow 
workmen, who 
have always 
been employed 
in the United 
States, a new 
and logical 
idea of the 
value of govem- 
ment owner- 
ship and its 
advantages to 
the workingman as shown on the Canal Zone. 

"Around them will gather the socialists, the union 
men who think for themselves and all other upper 
class workingmen. Do not mistake my meaning. 
This will be no Coxey's army movement, no gather- 
ing of the riffraff of failures seeking to rob the toiler 
of his gains or the investor of his dollars, but earnest 
men, whose weapon will not be the torch and the 
dynamite bomb, but the ballot. By their votes 
and the enormous following they can rally to their 
standard they will force the government to take 
over the public utilities, if not all the large corpora- 
tions, of the country. They will force the adoption 
of government standards of work, wages and cost 
of living as exemplified in the work on the Canal. 



In other words the influx of workers will lead directly 
to paternalism". 

Let us, however, consider this bogy of socialism 
fairly. Before proceeding to a more detailed account 
of the manner of life upon the Canal Zone let me 
outline hastily the conditions which regarded super- 




THE FIRE FORCE OF CRISTOBAL 



ficially seem socialistic, and with a line or two show 
why they are not so at all. 

Our Uncle Sam owns and manages a line of steam- 
ships plying between New York and Panama, carry- 
ing both passengers and freight and competing 
successfully with several lines of foreign-built ships. 
The largest vessels are of ten thousand tons and 
would rank well with the lesser transatlantic liners. 
On them Congressmen and Panama Zone officials are 
carried free, while employees of the Isthmian Canal 
Commission get an exceedingly low rate for them- 
selves and their families. The government also 
owns and conducts th-e Panama Railroad, which 
crosses in less than three hours from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, while the privately owned railroads 



328 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



of the United States take about seven days to pass 
from one ocean to the other. This sounds hke a 
mighty good argument for government ownership 
and it is not much more fallacious than some others 
drawn from Isthmian conditions. The President 
of the Panama Railroad is Col. George W. Goethals. 
The government caught him young, educated him 
at its excellent West Point school, paying him a 
salary while he was learning to be useful, and has 
'been employing and paying him ever since. Like 
'a citizen of the ideal Co-operative Commonwealth 
; he has never had to worry about a job. The State 
has always employed him and paid him. While he 
has done his work better than others of equal rank, 
he has only recently begun to draw any more pay 
than other colonels. Sounds very socialistic, doesn't 




ORCHIDS ON GOV. THATCHER S PORCH 



it? And he seems to make a very good railroad 
president too, though the shuffling of shares in Wall 
Street had nothing to do with his appointment, and 
he hasn't got a director on his board interlocked 
with J. P. Morgan & Co., or the City National 
Bank. 

The government which runs this railroad and 
steamship line doesn't confine its activity to big 
things. It will wash a shirt for one of its Canal 
employees at about half the price that John China- 
man doing business nearby" would charge, press his 
clothing, or it will send a man into your home — 
if you live in the Zone — to chloroform any stray 
mosquitoes lurking there and convey them away 
in a bottle. It will house in an electric-lighted, 
wire-screened tenement, a Jamaica negro who at 
home lived in a basket-work shack, 
plastered with mud and thatched 
with palmetto leaves. It is very 
democratic too, this government, for 
it won't issue to Mrs. Highflyer more 
than three wicker arm-chairs, even 
if she does entertain every day, while 
her neighbor Mrs. Domus who gets 
just exactly as many never entertains 
at all. It can be just too mean for 
anything, like socialism, which we 
are so often told "puts everybody 
on a dead level." ■< 

The dream of the late Edward 
Bellamy is given actuality on the 
Zone where we find a great central 
authority, buying everything imagi- 
nable in all the markets of the world, 
at the moment when prices are lowest 
— an authority big enough to snap 
its fingers at any trust — and selling 
again without profit to the ultimate 
consumers. There are no trust profits, 
no middleman's profits included in 
prices of things bought at the Com- 
missary stores. There are eighteen 
such stores in the Zone. The total 
business of the Commissary stores 
amounts to about S>6, 000,000 annually. 
Everything is sold at prices materially 
less than it can be bought in the 
United States, yet the department 



WHY IT IS NOT AT ALL "SOCIALISTIC" 



329 



shows an actual profit, which is at once put back 
into the business. A Zone housewife told me that 
a steak for her family that would cost at least 
ninety cents in her home in Brooklyn cost her forty 
here. Shoddy or merely "cheap" goods are not 
carried and the United States pure food law is 
strictly observed. That terrible problem of the 
"higher cost of living" hardly presents itself to 
Zone dwellers except purchasers of purely native 
products ; those, thanks to the tourists, have doubled 
in price several times in the last five years. But 
articles purveyed by Uncle Sam are furnished to 
his nephews and nieces here for about one-third less 
than the luckless ones must pay who are sticking 
to the old homestead instead of faring forth to the 
tropics. 

I have already enumerated the valuable privileges, 
like free quarters, light, furniture, medical service, 
etc., supplied to the Zone worker without charge. 
If all these apparent gratuities were accompanied 
by a rate of pay lower than that in force for like 
occupations in the States it might be fair to say, 
as one of the most careful writers on Isthmian 
topics says, "these form part of the contract the 
employee makes with the government, and are just 
as much part of his pay as his monthly salary". 
But that pay averages twenty-five per cent higher 
than at home. The things enumerated are looked 
upon by those who receive them as gratuities, and 
rightly so. They are, in fact, extra inducements 
offered by Uncle Sam to persuade men to come 
and work on his Canal and to keep them happy 
and contented while doing so. 

Now the chief material argument for the socialistic 
state, the co-operative commonwealth, is that it 
will secure for every citizen comfort and content- 
ment, so far as contentment is possible to restless 
human minds; that it will abolish at a stroke 
monopoly and privilege, purge society of parasites, 
add to the efficiency of labor and proportionately 
increase its rewards. All of which is measurably 
accomplished on the Canal Zone and the less cautious 
socialists — the well-grounded ones see the difference 
— are excusable for hailing the government there as 
an evidence of the practicability of socialism. 
") But it isn't — at least not quite. The incarnation 
of the difiference between this and socialism is Col. 
George W. Goethals. Nobody on the Zone had 




Photo by H. Pillier Courtesy National Geographic Magazine 

THE CATASETUM SCURRA 

A curiously shaped orchid rediscovered by Mrs. H. H. Rousseau 

part in electing Goethals; nobody can say him nay, 
or abate or hinder in any degree his complete personal 
control of all that is done here. This is not the 
co-operative commonwealth we long have sought. 
Rather is it like the commonwealth of old with 
Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector — and at that 
Goethals has no parliament to purge. 

This is a benevolent despotism, the sort of govern- 
ment that philosophers agree would be ideal if the 
benevolence of the despot could only be assm'ed 
invariably and eternally. The Czar of Russia could 
do what is being done down there were he vested 
with Goethals' intolerance of bureaucracies, red- 
tape, parasites, grafters, disobedience and dela}^. 
But Goethals is equally intolerant of opposition, 
argument, even advice from below. His is the 
military method of personal command and personal 



330 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Photo by Undericood & Underwood 

MARRIED QUARTERS AT COROZAL 

responsibility. I don't believe he is over-fond even 
of the council of war. In a socialistic community, 
where every man had a voice in the government, he 
would last only long enough for a new election to 
be called. Though his popularity there is universal, 
it would not withstand the attacks of demagogues 
were there field for demagogy. 

But what has been done, and is still doing, on the 
Zone is not socialistic, because it is done from the 
top, by the orders of an autocrat, instead of by an 
act of a town meeting. One might as well say that 
the patience, prudence, attention to detail, insist- 
ence on proper sanitation which enabled Japan's 
great General Nogi to keep his army in the field 
with the minimum loss from preventable sickness 
was all socialistic. Col. Goethals cornmanded an 
army. The Isthmus was the enemy. The army 
must be fed and clothed, hence the Commissary. 
Its communications must be kept open, hence the 
steamship line and the railroad. The soldiers must 
be housed, and as it became early apparent that 
the siege was to be a long one the camps were built 
of timber instead of tents. There is nothing new 
about that. Back in the fifteenth century Queen 
Isabella, concluding that it woiild take a long time 
to starve the Moors out of Granada, kept her 
soldiers busy building a city of stone and mortar 
before the M'alls of the beleaguered town. Culebra 
has been a more stubborn fortress than was ever 
Granada. 



No. The organization of 
the Zone has been purely 
military, not socialistic. It 
was created for a purpose and 
it will vanish when that pur- 
pose has been attained. Ad- 
mirably adapted to its end it 
had many elements of charm 
to those living under it. The 
Zone villages, even those like 
Culebra and Gorgona which 
are to be abandoned, were 
beautiful in appearance, de- 
lightful in social refinement. 
Culebra with its winding 
streets, bordered by tropical 
shrubbery in which nestled 
the cool and commodious 
houses of the engineers and higher employees, leading 
up to the hill crested by the residence of the Colonel 




FIGHTING THE INDUSTRIOUS ANT 



IN A TYPICAL CANAL ZONE DWELLING 



331 



— of course there were five colonels on the Commis- 
sion, but only one "The Colonel" — Culebra was a 
delight to the visitor and must have been a joy to 
the resident. 

Try to figure to yourself the home of a young 
engineer as I saw it. The house is two storeys 
with a pent-house roof, painted dark green, with 
the window frames, door casings and posts of the 
broad verandas, by which it is nearly surrounded, 
done in shining white. Between the posts is wire 
netting and be- 
hind is a piazza 
probably twelve 
feet wide which 
in that climate 
is as good as a 
room for living, 
eating or sleep- 
ing purposes. 
The main body 
of the house is 
oblong, about 
fifty feet long by 
thirty to forty 
feet deep. A 
living-room and 
dining-room fill 
the entire front. 
The hall, instead 
of running from 
the front to the 
back of the 
house, as is 
customary with 
us, runs across 
the house, back 






of these two 
rooms. It is in 
no sense an 
entry, though it 
has a door 
opening from 
the garden, but 
separates the 
living-rooms 
from the kitchen 
and other work- 
ing rooms. The 
stairway ascends 
from this hall to 
the second floor 
where two large 
bed -rooms fill 
the front of the 
house, a big 
bath-room, a 
bed-room and 
the dry-room 
being in the rear. 
About that last 
apartment let 
me go into some 
detail. The 
climate of the 
Zone is always rather humid, and in the rainy 
season you can wring water out of everything that 
can absorb it. So in each house is a room kept 
tightly closed with two electric lights in it burning 
day and night. Therein are kept all clothes, shoes, 
etc., not in actual use, and the combined heat and 
light keep damp and mold out of the goods thus 
stored. Mold is one of the chief pests of the 
Panama housekeeper. You will see few books in 



FOLIAGE ON THE ZONE 



332 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



even the most tastefully furnished houses, because 
the mold attacks their bindings. Every piano has 
an electric light inserted within its case and kept 
burning constantly to dispel the damp. By way 
of quieting the alarm of readers it may be mentioned 
again that electric light is furnished free to Isthmian 
Commission employees. "We always laugh", said 
a hostess one night, as she looked back at my 
darkened room in her house from the walk outside, 
"at the care people from the States take to turn 
out the lights. We enjoy being extravagant and 
let them burn all day if we feel like it". 

In such a house there is no plaster. From within 
you see the entire frame of the house — uprights, 
joists, stanchions, floor beams, all — and the interior 
is painted as a rule precisely like the exterior without 
the white trimming. You don't notice this at first. 
Then it fascinates you. You think it amusing and 
improper to see a house's underpinning so indecently 
exposed. All that we cover with laths, plaster, 
calcimine and wall paper is here naked to the eye. 
Only a skin of half-inch lumber intervenes between 
you and the outer world, or the people in the next 
room. You notice the windows look strange. 
There is no sash. To a house of the sort I am de- 



scribing four or six glass windows are allotted to 
be put in the orifices the housekeeper may select. 
The other windows are unclosed except at night, 
when you may, if you wish, swing heavy board 
shutters across them. 

A house of the type I have described is known as 
Type 10, and is assigned to employees drawing 
from $300 to $400 a month. Those getting from 
$200 to $300 a month are assigned either to quarters 
in a two-family house, or to a small cottage of six 
or seven rooms, though, as the supply of the latter 
is limited, they are greatly prized. Employees 
drawing less than $200 a month have four-room 
flats in buildings accommodating four families. 
Those who receive more than $400 a month are 
given large houses of a type distinguished by 
spaciousness and artistic design. 

When you come to analyze it such houses are only 
large shacks, and yet their proportions and coloring, 
coupled with their obvious fitness for the climate, 
make them, when tastefully furnished and decorated, 
thoroughly artistic homes. For these homes the 
Commission furnishes all the bare essentials. With 
mechanical precision it furnishes the number of 
tables, chairs, beds and dressers which the Com- 
mission in its sovereign wisdom has decided to be 
proper for a gentleman of the station in life to which 
that house is fitted. For the merely esthetic the 
Commission cares nothing, though it is fair to say 




PJurl.) by Una 



THE CHIEF COMMISSARY AT CRISTOBAL 



SOME FEATURES OF ZONE HOUSEKEEPING 



333 




P/iolo by Cndcrirood d: Underwood 



WHAT THE SLIDE DID TO THE RAILROAD 

The pernicious activity of slides occasionally creates this novel condition in railroad construction 



that the furniture it supplies, though commonplace, 
is not in bad taste. But for decoration the Zone 
dwellers must go down into their own pockets and 
to a greater or less degree all do so. The authorities 
have not gone to the extent of prohibiting this 
rivalry as at West Point and Annapolis where the 
cadets are not permitted to decorate their rooms 
lest inequality and mortification result. But in 
Panama the climate enforces such a prohibition to 
some extent. Luxury there would be positive 
discomfort. Costly rugs and hangings, richly up- 
holstered furniture are out of place. Air space is 
the greatest luxury, and a room cluttered with objects 
of priceless art would be scarcely habitable. 

Within their limitations, however, the hostesses 
of the Zone have made their homes thoroughly 
charming. The visitor was, I think, most im- 
pressed by those who frankly used the trimmings 



of the tropics for their chief decorations. The orchid- 
lined porches of Mrs. M. H. Thatcher, wife of the 
civil commissioner, or Mrs. H. H. Rousseau, wife of 
the naval representative on the Commission, were a 
veritable fairyland when the swift tropic night had 
fallen and the colored lights began to glow among the 
rustling palms and delicately tinted orchids. No 
more beautiful apartment could possibly be imagined. 
t Housekeeping is vastly simplified by the Com- 
missary. When there is but one place to shop, and 
only one quality of goods to select from — namely 
the best, for that is all the Commissary carries — the 
shopping tasks of the housekeeper are reduced to a 
minimum. Nevertheless they grumble — perhaps be- 
cause women like to shop, more probably because 
this situation creates a dull and monotonous same- 
ness amongst the families. "What's the good of 
giving a dinner party", asked a hostess plaintively, 



334 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




NOT FROM JAMAICA BUT THE Y. M. C. A. 



"when your guests all know exactly what everything 
on your table costs, and they can guess just what 
you are going to serve? They say, 'I wish she'd 
bought lamb at the Commissary, it costs just the 
same as turkey'. Or 'the 
Commissary had new aspara- 
gus today. Wonder why she 
took cauliflower'? They get 
the Commissary list just as 
I do and know exactly to 
what I am limited, as we 
can only buy at the Com- 
missary. There is no chance 
for the little surprises that 
make an interesting dinner 
party". 

That is perhaps a trifle 
disquieting to the adventurous 
housekeeper, but, except for 
the purpose of entertaining, 
the Commissary must be a 
great boon. Its selection of 
household necessities is suf- 
ficiently varied to meet every 
need ; the quality the best and 
its prices are tmiformly lower 
than in the United States. 



This comparative cheapness in 
prices is, of course, due to the 
elimination of the middlemen, 
the buying by the com- 
missary in large quantities 
and the disregard of profit as 
an element in the business. 
There is but one step between 
the Beef Trust, or other man- 
ufacturers, and the ultimate 
consumers on the Zone. The 
one intermediary is the Com- 
missary. It buys in such 
quantities that it can be sure 
of the lowest prices. It buys 
in markets 3,000 miles or 
more away from its stores, 
but it gets the lowest freight 
rates and an all- water carriage 
from New York. Finally it 
; pays no rent and seeks no 

profit, hence its prices should be the lowest. 

Here is a selection from the printed list issued 

in April, 1913, from which any house-keeper can 

judge of Zone prices: 




A BACHELOR S QUARTERS 



PRICES OF FOOD AT THE COMMISSARY 



335 



Veal Cutlets, per pound 17c 

Lamb Chops, per pound 24c 

Corned Beef, No. i 14c 

Sirloin Steak, per pound 19c 

Halibut, fresh, per pound 15c 

Chickens, fancy roasting, 53^ pounds each $1.25 

Ducks, blackhead, pair 60c 

Pork, salt, family 14c 

Eggs, fresh, dozen 25c 

Butter, creamery, special 41c 

American Cheese, per pound 22c 

Celery, per head iic 

Cabbage, per pound 3c 

Onions, per pound 3c 

Potatoes, white, per pound 3c 

Turnips, per pound 3c 

Grapefruit, each 4c 

Oranges, Jamaica, per dozen 12c 

If, however, the Commissary system reduces life 
to something of a general uniformity and destroys 
shopping as a subject of conversation, the ladies of 
the Zone still have the eternal servant problem of 
which to talk. De Amicis, the travel writer, said 
that servants formed the one universal topic for 
conversation and that he bid a hasty farewell to 
his mother in Naples after a monologue on the sins 
of servants, only to find, at his first dinner in 
Amsterdam, whither he had traveled with all possible 
speed, that the same topic engrossed the mind of 
his hostess there. In Panama the matter is some- 
what simplified by the fact that only one type of 
servant is obtainable, namely the Jamaica negress. 




THE GRAPE FRUIT OF PANAMA 




THE TIVOLI HOTEL 



It is complicated 

by the complete 

lack of intelli- 
gence offices. If 

a housekeeper 

wants a maid 

she asks her 

friends to spread 

the tidings to 

their servants, 

and then waits, 

supine, until the 

treasure comes 

to the door. 

Servants out of 

employment 

seek it by 

trudging from 

house to house 

and from village 

to village. Once 

hired they do 

what they have 

to do and no more. Among them is none of the 

spirit of loyalty which makes the "old Southern 

mammy" a figure in our fiction, nor any of the 

energy which in the Northern States Bridget con- 
tributes to household life — though, indeed, Bridget 

is disappearing from domestic service before the 

flood of Scandinavians and Germans. 

The only wail I heard on the Isthmus about the 

increasing cost of living had to do with the wages 

of servants. "In the earlier days", said one of my 

hostesses rem- 
iniscently, "it 
was possible to 
get servants for 
very low wages. 
They were ac- 
customed to 
doing little and 
getting little, as 
in Jamaica 
and other West 
Indian islands, 
where many 
servants are 
employed by 



336 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



one family, each with a particular 'line'. People 
say that in Panama City servants can still be found 
who will work for $5 silver ($2.50) per month, and 
that Americans have spoiled them by paying too 
much. But I think they have developed a capacity 
for work and management equal to that of servants 
in the States and deserve their increased wages. 
I pay $15, gold, a month to my one capable servant. 
Occasionally you will find one who will work for 
^10, but many get $20 if they are good cooks and 
lielp with baby. Probably $12 to $15 is an average 
price. 

"These Jamaica servants speak very English 
English — you can't call it Cockney, for they don't 
drop their h's, but it differs greatly from our 
American English. They are very fond of big 
words, which they usually use incorrectly, especially 
the men. A Commissary salesman, to whom I sent 
.a note asking for five pounds of salt meat, sent back 



the child who carried it to 'ask her mother to 
differentiate', meaning what kind of salt meat. A 
cook asked me once 'the potatoes to crush, ma'am'? 
meaning to ask if they were to be mashed. Another 
after seizing time to air a blanket between showers 
reported exultantly, 'the rain did let it sun, mum'. 
And always when they wish to know if you want 
hot water they inquire, 'the water to hot, mum'? 
"Their names are usually elaborate. Celeste, 
Geraldine, Katherine, Eugenie, are some that I 
recall. My own maid is Susannah, which reminds 
me — without reflecting on this particular one — that 
as a class they are hopelessly unmoral, though 
extremely religious withal. I have known them to 
be clean and efhcient, but as a rule they are quite 
the reverse. Some are woefully ignorant of modern 
utensils. One for example, being new to kitchen 
ranges, built a fire in the oven on the first day of 
her service. Another, having been carefully in- 




PURE PANAMA, PURE INDIAN AND ALL BETWEEN 



i 




< " 

o Z 

m ^ 

< ^ 



I- > 

< _;^ 

< = 



Q ^ 

_l o 

o -B 



o 



THE COMPLICATED SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ZONE 



:,o7 



structed always to take a visitor's 
card on a tray, neglected the 
trim salver provided for that 
purpose and extended to the 
astonished caller a huge lacquered 
tin tray used for carrying dishes 
from the kitchen. 

"I'll never forget", concluded 
my hostess between smiles , and 
sorrow, "how I felt when I saw 
that lonesome little card reposing 
on the broad black and battered 
expanse of that nasty old tray"! 

Social life on the Zone is rather 
complex. At the apex, of course, 
are the Commissioners and their 
families. The presence of an 
Envoy Extraordinary and 
Minister Plenipotentiary of the 
United States in Panama City adds another factor 
to the always vexed question of precedence, while 
the maintenance of a military post with a fuU 
regiment, and a marine camp with a battalion does 
not help to simplify matters. Social affiliations 
among those not in the Commission or the Army 
set are based with primitive simplicity upon the 





Photo by Underwood £: Underwood 

INTERIOR OF GATUN Y. M. C. A. CLUB 



Y. M. C. A. CLUB AT GATUN 
These clubs are the true centers of the social life of the zonj 



amount of the husband's earnings. One advantage 
of this system is that it is based upon perfectly 
accurate information, for everybody on the Zone 
works for the Commission and the payrolls are 
periodically published. But it jars the ingenuous 
outsider to have a woman, apparently without a 
trace of snobbery, remark casually of another, 
"well, we don't see much of her. 
Her husband is in the $2000 class 
you know". 

Social life is further complicated 
by the fact that the people of the 
Zone came from all parts of the 
United States, with a few from 
Europe. They have no common 
home associations. When the 
settlement of the Zone first began 
the women were dismally lonely, 
and the Commission called in a 
professional organizer of women's 
clubs to get them together. Clubs 
were organized from Ancon to 
Cristobal and federated with Mrs. 
Goethals for President and Mrs. 
Gorgas for Vice-President. Cule- 
bra entertained Gorgona with tea 
and Tolstoi, and Empire chal- 
lenged Corozal to an interchange 
of views on eugenics over the 



338 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




I huto by O ndt^Tiioud 



MARINE POST AT CAMP ELLIOTT 
A force of about 500 marines will be kept permanently on the Zone 



coffee cups and wafers. In a recent number of 
The Canal Record, the official paper of the Zone, 
I find nearly a page given over to an account of 
the activities of the women's societies and church 
work. It appears that there were in April, 1913, 
twenty-five societies of various sorts existing among 
the women on the Zone. The Canal Zone Federa- 
tion of Women's Clubs had five subsidiary clubs 
with a membership of fifty-eight. There were 
twelve church organizations with a membership of 
239. Nearly 290 women were enrolled in auxiliaries 
to men's organizations. But these organizations 
were rapidly breaking up even then and the com- 
pletion of the Canal will witness their 
general disintegration. They served 
their purpose. Only a mind that 
could mix the ideal with the practi- 
cal could have foreseen that discus- 
sions of the Baconian Cipher, or 
the philosophy of Nietzsche might 
have a bearing on the job of 
digging a canal, but whoever con- 
ceived the idea was right. 

The same clear foresight that 
led the Commission to encourage 
the establishment of women's clubs 
caused the installation of the Y. 
M. C. A. on the Isthmus, where 



it has become perhaps the dominating social force. 
With a host of young bachelors employed far away 
from home there was need of social meeting places 
other than the saloons of Panama and Colon. Many 
schemes were suggested before it was determined to 
turn over the whole organization of social clubs to 
the governing body of the Y. M. C. A. There were 
at the period of the greatest activity on the Zone 
seven Y. M. C. A. clubs loca- 
ted at Cristobal, 
Gatun, Porto 
Bello, 




PUio by Cnameooci d i mcrucmt 

TOURISTS IN THE CULEBRA CUT 



CHURCH WORK AND THE Y. M. C. A. 



339 



Gorgona, Empire, Culebra and Corozal. The build- 
ings are spacious, and, as shown by the illustrations, 
of pleasing architectural style. On the first floor 
are a lobby, reading-room and library, pool and 
billiard room, bowling alley, a business-like bar 
which serves only soft drinks, a quick lunch counter, 
and in some cases a barber shop and baths. On 
the second floor is always a large assembly-room 
used for enter- 
tainments and 
dances. This 
matter of dancing 
was at first em- 
barrassing to the 
Y. M. C. A., for 
at home this 
organization does 
not encourage the 
dreamy mazes of 
the waltz, and I 
am quite sure 
frowns disap- 
provingly on the 
swaying tango 
and terrible 
turkey trot. But 
conditions on the 
Isthmus were 
different and 
though the orga- 
nization does not 
itself give dances, 
it permits the use 
of its halls by 
other clubs which 
do. The halls also 
are used for mov- 
ing pictvire shows, 

concerts and lectures. The Superintendent of Club 
Houses, Mr. A. B. Dickson, acts as a sort of impres- 
sario, but the task of filling dates with desirable 
attractions is rather a complicated one 2000 miles 
away from the lyceum bureaus of New York. 

The service of the Y. M. C. A. is not gratuitous. 
Members pay an annual fee of $10 each. This, 
however, does not wholly meet the cost of mainte- 
nance and the deficit is taken care of by the Com- 
mission, which built the club houses at the outset. 




Photo by Underwood & Underwood 



LOBBY IN TIVOLI HOTEL 



That the service of the organization is useful is 
shown by the fact that Col. Goethals has recom- 
mended the erection of a concrete club house to 
cost $52,500 in the permanent town of Balboa. 

Social intercourse on the Zone is further im- 
peded by the fact that the few thousand "gold" 
employees are scattered over a strip of territory 
43 miles long traversed by a railroad which runs 

but three passen- 
ger trains daily 
in each direction. 
Dances are held 
on alternate 
Saturday nights 
at the Tivoli and 
Washington Ho- 
tels and guests 
cross from the 
Atlantic to the 
Pacific or vice- 
versa to attend 
them, but on 
these nights a 
special train takes 
the merrymakers 
home. If, how- 
ever, a lady living 
at Culebra desires 
to have guests 
from Cristobal to 
dinner, she must 
keep them all 
night, while a 
popular bachelor 
with half a dozen 
dinner or party 
calls to make 
needs about three 
uninterrupted days to cover his list. 

Church work, too, has been fostered by the Com- 
mission. Twenty-six of the churches are owned 
by it, and all but two are on land it owns. In 1912 
there were forty churches on the Zone — seven 
Roman Catholic, thirteen Episcopal, seven Baptist, 
two Wesleyan and eight undenominational. Fifteen 
chaplains are maintained by the government, ap- 
portioned among the denominations in proportion 
to their numbers. Much good work is done by the 



340 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



churches, but one scarcely 
feels that the church 
spirit is as strong as it 
would be among the same 
group of people in the 
States. The changed 
order of life, due to the 
need of deferring to 
tropical conditions, has 
something to do with 
this. The stroll home 
from church at midday 
is not so pleasant a 
Sunday function under 
a glaring tropical sun. 
Moreover no one town 
can support churches of 
every denomination, and 
the railroad is at least 
impartial in that it does 
not encourage one to go 
down the line to church 
any more than to a 
dance or the theater. 

Even as I write the 
disintegration of this so- 
ciety has begun. On the 
tables of the Zone dwell- 
ers you find books about South America or Alaska 
— the widely separated points at which opportunity 
for engineering activity seems to be most promising. 
Alaska particularly was at the time engaging the 
speculative thought of the young engineers in view 
of the discussion in Congress of the advisability of 
building two government railroads in that territory. 




l-'tiulii by Undi^rwuud tfc Undtrwijod 

ALTAR IN GATUN 



The preparation of mov- 
ing thither the Canal 
organization was highly 
pleasing to the younger 
men who seemed to 
think that working over 
glacial moraines and run- 
ning lines over snow 
fields would form a 
pleasing sequel to several 
years in the tropical 
jungles and swamps. 
You will see on the 
Isthmus bronzed and 
swarthy men who are 
pointed out to you as 
"T T's" which is to 
say tropical tramps 
who served first in the 
Philippines. Just what 
appellation will be given 
those who go from the 
tropics to the arctic is yet 
to be discovered. In the 
Cmial Record I read of 
the final dissolution of 
the Federation of Wom- 
en's Clubs. Stories of 
the ambitions of individual commissioners for new 
employment are appearing in the public prints. 
Only the pernicious activity of the slides at Culebra 
and Cucaracha can much longer delay the dissolu- 
tion of the social life that has so pleasingly 
flourished under the benevolent despotism of Col. 
Goethals. 



CATHOLIC CHURCH 



CHAPTER XVIII 



LABOR AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ZONE 




Y its provision for the 
comfort of the unmarried 
employees the Isthmian 
Commission has justified 
the allegation that it syste- 
matically encourages matri- 
mony among the men. The 
bachelor employee upon the 
gold roll is housed in large 
barracks which rarely afford 
him a room to himself, but 
ordinarily force upon him one, two or even three 
"chums." The intimacies of chumming are delight- 
ful when sought, but apt to be irksome when in- 
voluntary. The bachelor quarters house from twelve 
to sixty men, and are wholly made up of sleeping 
rooms. The broad screened verandas constitute 
the only living room or social hall. If that does 
not serve the young bachelor's purpose he has the 
Y. M. C. A. which is quite as public. In fact, 
unless he be one of the few favored with a room 
to himself, he must wander off, like a misanthrope, 
into the heart of the jungle to meditate in solitude. 
As hard outdoor work does not make for misan- 
thropy most of them wander off to the chvuch and 
get married. 

The unmarried employees take their meals in 
what are called Commission Hotels, though these 



are hotels only in the sense of being great eating 
houses. Here men and women on the gold roll are 
served, for there are bachelor girls on the Zone and 
at these hotels special veranda tables are reserved 
for them and for such men as retain enough of the 
frills of civilization as to prefer wearing their coats 
at their meals. Meals for employees cost thirty 
cents each, or fifty cents for non-employees. There 
is some divergence of judgment concerning the 
excellence of this food. Col. Roosevelt, while on 
the Isthmus, evaded his guides, dashed into a Com- 
mission hotel and devoured a thirty-cent meal, 
pronouncing it bully and declaring it unapproach- 
able by any Broadway meal at $i.oo. The Colonel 
sincerely believed that his approach was unheralded, 
but they do say on the Zone that his descent was 
"tipped off" like a raid in the "Tenderloin," and 
that a meal costing the contractors many times 
thirty cents was set before him. 

Undoubtedly one who should order the same 
variety of dishes in a city restaurant in the States 
would have to pay more than fifty cents, although 
there are country hotels in which equal variety and 
excellence for the price are not unattainable. A 
typical dinner menu includes soup, two kinds of 
meat, four kinds of vegetables, hot rolls or light 
bread, a salad, tea, coffee, or cocoa and for dessert 
pie or ice cream. The Isthmian appetite for ice 




Pfioto by Underwood & Underwood 



LA BOCA FROil THE CITY 



342 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



cream is a truly tropical wonder. In the early days Zone are mainly due to the Commissary system 
of the work the novice on the Isthmus was likely to which has grown up under the American regime, 
mistake an open bowl of quinine on the table for pul- This is part of the Subsistence Department, which 

is divided into two branches — ^hotel 
and commissary. The hotel depart- 
ment not only runs the Commission 
hotels already described, but the two 
large hotels patronized by tourists 
T — the Tivoli at Ancon and the Wash- 
ington at Colon. Though a special 
rate is made at these two hotels 
for employees, their prices are still 
too high for them to be patronized 
by any except the most highly 
paid workers. Even the pleasure 
seeker on the Isthmus is likely to re- 
gard their rates as rather exorbitant. 
Their prices, however, are essentially 
those of the native Panamanian 
hotels in the city, and in cleanliness 
they are vastly superior. The visitor to Panama, 
however, who seeks local color or native food need 
not expect to find either at the Tivoli. That is a 



^i^BKHSi&^M^J/... 








■^'^ M- iu ^ 


£. * TCL^^M^^L^ 


^B^HrB^^^^sbP^' ^ 




HH 


h^^^Sh 




■b 


HH^9 




H 


^^■^^pPHH 




HjjH 






i^HI 



typical resort hotel which might have been moved 



AT LOS ANGOSTURAS 
Some Panama rivers flow through dales like those of the Wisconsin 

verized sugar, but this has very generally disappeared. 

No money changes hands at the Commission hotels, 
unless the diner happens to be a non-employee. 
Meals are paid for by coupons from books purchased 
at the Commissary. 
By omitting the 
luncheon, and filling 
its place with a little 
fruit, or a sandwich, 
the Canal employee 
can make his food cost 
only $i8 a month. He 
has no lodging to pay ; 
clothes are the cheapest 
imaginable, for there 
are no seasons to pro- 
vide for, nor any rota- 
tions of fashions to be 
observed; theaters are 
practically non- 
existent and away 
from Panama City 
temptation to riotous 
living are slight. The 

Zone worker is the most solvent individual in all down to the Isthmus from the Jersey beaches or 
industry and ought to close up a four or five years' Saratoga Springs. Its only local color resides in 
service with a comfortable nest egg. its Jamaica waiters, and as I am assured that they 

The economy and comfort of life on the Canal are no less a trial to the managers than to the 




THE WATER FRONT AT COLON ,., 
Cocoanut palms are picturesque but beware of the falling nuts 



THE COLOSSAL BUSINESS OF THE COMMISSARY 



343 




Photo by Underwood & Underwood 

NEGRO QUARTERS AT CRISTOBAL 
The Jamaica negroes frequently elect to live in the shacks rather than the commission barracks 



guests, criticism would be perhaps ungenerous. As 
for native fruits and food, you must go away from 
the hotel to seek them. An infrequent papaya 
appears on the menu, but for the mamei, mango, 
sapodilla and other fruits, the guests at the time 
of my visit sought the native fruit stores. 

After all, however, the two big hotels are the 
least of the tasks imposed on the Subsistence De- 
partment. The string of Commission hotels, i8 
in all, serve about 200,000 meals monthly. There 
are also 17 messes for European laborers who pay 
40 cents per ration of three meals a day. Sixteen 
kitchens serve the West India laborers who get 
three meals for 27 cents. About 100,000 meals of 
this sort are served monthly. Receipts and expendi- 



tures for the line hotels, messes and kitchens are 
very nicely adjusted. The Official Handbook puts 
receipts at about $105,000 a month; expenditures, 
$104,500. The Tivoli Hotel earns a profit, but the 
Washington Hotel, being newly built, had not at 
the time of publication of this book made a financial 
report. ' 

As I have noted, the hotels are not open to all 
sorts and conditions of men. Those which I have 
described are established for the use of gold em- 
ployees only. Different methods had to be adopted 
in providing lodging and eating places for the more 
than 30,000 silver employees, most of whom belong 
to the unskilled labor class. About 25,000 of the 
silver employees are West Indians, mainly from 



344 



PANAMA AND THE GANAL 




Photo l)u Undermood & Underwood 

LABOR TRAIN AT ANCON 

Jamaica or the Barbados, though some French are 
found. A very few Chinese are employed. In 1906 
Engineer Stevens advertised for 2500 Chinese coohes, 
and planned to take 15,000 if they offered them- 
selves, but there was no considerable response. 
Perhaps the story of the unhappy Chinamen who 
destroyed themselves during the French regime 
rather than live on the Isthmus may have been told 
in the Flowery Kingdom and deterred others from 




NEGRO SLEEPING QUARTERS 

All extra clothing etc., is piled on shelf above. The floor is flushed daily 



coming. But few Japanese laborers are enrolled, 
which is the more strange when the part they took 
in railroad building in the Pacific northwest is 
remembered. 

In all forty nationalities and eighty-five geograph- 
ical subdivisions were noted in the census of 1912. 
Greenland is missing, but if we amend the hymn to 
"From Iceland's icy mountains to India's coral 
strand," it will fit the situation. When work was 
busiest the West Indian laborers were paid 10 cents 
an hour, for an eight-hour day, except in the case 
of those doing special work who got 16 and 20 cents. 
The next higher type of manual labor, largely com- 
posed of Spaniards, drew 20 cents. Artisans re- 
ceived from 16 to 44 cents an hour. In figuring the 
cost of work it was the custom of the engineers to 
reckon the West Indian labor as only 33 per cent 
as efficient as American labor. That is to say, $3 
paid to a Jamaican produced no greater results 
than $1 paid to an American. Reckoned by results 
therefore, the prices paid for native labor were 
high. 

Quarters and a Commissary service were of course 
provided for the silver employees. Their quarters 
were as a rule huge barracks, though many of the 

natives and West Indians 
spurn the free quarters pro- 
vided by the Commission 
and make their homes in 
shacks of their own. This 
is particularly the case with 
those who are married, or 
living in the free unions 
not uncommon among the 
Jamaica negroes. The 
visitor who saw first the 
trim and really attractive 
houses and bachelor 
quarters assigned to the 
gold employees could hardly 
avoid a certain revulsion 
of opinion as to the sweet- 
ness and light of Isthmian 
life when he wandered into 
the negro quarters across 
the railroad in front of the 
Tivoli Hotel at Ancon, or 
in some of the back streets 



THE TASK OF FEEDING FORTY NATIONALITIES 



345 



of Empire or Gorgona. The best kept barracks for 
silver employees were at Cristobal, but even there the 
restlessness and independence of the Jamaicans were 
so great that many moved across into the frame 
•rookeries of the native town of Colon. 

In the crowded negro quarters one evidence of the 
activities of the sanitation department was largely 
missing. No attempt was made to screen all the 
barracks and shacks that housed the workers. But 
the self-closing garbage can, the oil-sprinkled gutters, 
the clean pavement and all the other evidences of 
the activities of Col. Gorgas' men were there. Per- 
haps the feature of the barracks which most puzzled 
and amused visitors to the Zone were the kitchens. 
Imagine a frame building 300 feet long by 75 feet 
wide, three stories high with railed balconies at 
every story. Perched on the rails of the balustrades, 
at intervals of 20 feet, and usually facing a door 
leading into the building are boxes of corrugated 
iron about 3 feet high, the top sloping upward like 
one side of a roof and the inner side open. These 
are the kitchens — one to each family. Within is 
room for a smoldering fire of soft coal, or charcoal, 
and a few pots and frying pans. Here the family 
meal is prepared, or heated up if, as is usually the 
case, the ingredients are obtained at the Com- 
missary kitchen. 

The reader may notice that 
the gold employees are sup- 
plied with food at a fixed 
price per meal; the silver 
employees at so much per 
ration of three meals. The 
reason for this is that it was 
early discovered that the la- 
borers were apt to economize 
by irregularity in eating — 
seldom taking more than two 
meals a day and often limiting 
themselves to one, making 
that one of such prodigious 
proportions as to unfit them 
for work for some hours, after 
which they went unfed until 
too weak to work properly. 
As the Commission lost by 

tniS practice at bOtn ends, p/joio tiu Uiutcrwooi it Unaerwooi 

the evil was corrected by 




Photo by Underwood <fc Underwood 

A workmen's sleeping car 

making the laborers pay for three meals, whether 
they ate them or not — and naturally they did. It 
is a matter of record that the quality of the work 
improved notably after this expedient was adopted. 
The gold messes are principally for the foreign 
laborers, Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese, and 
pains are taken to give them food of the sort they 
are accustomed to at home. Spaghetti is consumed 
by the ton, as well as rice, garlic, lentils and other veg- 
etables sought by the people of southern Europe. 





l\ >.' ■ ' ° ^^3 W^^^^^HH 


'^^^ -^ 


' '^'"^E^jT^ '^^ ' "^l^B 


\/ ■' J 





A workmen's dining car 



346 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 





/ i x. 
4 ! \ 


.. n 


"T"M*¥^i^By^^^WMi ll ^^^^^^^^^^^^^Bl 


^;^ iBfcV"^ 










^^JgP^^Pg 


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^^&l^ - l'S«l|HR'i«Mt-iii^@ 



u(/t£ d, L ILdtfUuad 



OLD FRENCH BUCKET DREDGES 
Some of these dredges are still in use for wet dredging 

In 1909 the Commission reported with satisfaction 
that "the rations at the messes for European 
laborers have been increased, among the additions 
being wine three time a week instead of twice a 
week". This record of accompHshment suggests 
some account of the way in which the prob- 
lem of the liquor traffic was handled on the 
Zone dvuing the most active period of construc- 
tion work and prior to the order abohshing 
all liquor selling. The 
problem was a difficult 
one, for the Zone was in 
effect a government res- 
ervation, and under a 
general law of Congress 
the sale of liquor on such 
reservations is prohibited. 
But on this reservation 
there were at divers times 
from 34 to 63 licensed 
saloons. July i, 1913, all 
licenses were canceled and 
the Zone went "dry". 
The earlier latitude granted 
to liquor sellers was ex- 
cused by the necessities 
of the case. The Spanish 



and Italian laborers 
were accustomed to 
have wine with their 
meals and were not 
contented without it. 
But at the later date 
the end of the work 
was in sight. There 
was no longer need 
to secure contented 
labor at the expense 
of violating a national 
statute. Hence the 
imposition of a stern 
prohibition law. 

That system of 
regulating'the sale of 
liquor on the Canal 
Zone is brimful of 
anomalies and incon- 
sistencies, but fairly 
well characterized by a robust common sense. 
There is no liquor sold or served at the Commissary 
hotels or kitchens, with the result that the Spanish 
and Italian laborers to some extent refuse to patron- 
ize either, but get their meals at some cantina where 
the wine of their country can be had. There is no 
bar at the Hotel Tivoli. That tavern being owned by 
the United States government and in a government 
reservation the law is nominally obeyed. But 




OLD FRENCH liRIDGE AT BAS OBISPO 



THE STERN SUPPRESSION OF THE SOCIAL GLASS 



347 



as the tastes of men are not fixed by 
law, and only imperfectly regiilated 
by it, you will find the tables of this 
hospitable inn plentiftdly dotted by 
comfortable looking bottles. Accord- 
ing to report the hotel authorities 
"send out" to some mysterious spot 
for these supplies as ordered, but I 
never happened to see the messenger 
of Bacchus on his errand and rather 
suspect that the hotel cellar contains 
the cheering spring. At any rate the 
United States as a hotel-keeper does 
not encourage liquor drinking at a 
bar, though it does not absolutely 
prohibit it at table. 

The saloons of the Zone, viewed 
superficially, seemed to be conducted 
for the convenience and comfort of 
the day laboring class — the silver employees — 
mainly. The police regulations made any par- 
ticular attractiveness other than that supplied by 
their stock in trade quite impossible. They could 
not have chairs or tables — "perpendicular drinking" 
was the rigid rule. They could not have cozy 




Photo by Underwood & Underwood 

■RAS OBISPO AS THE FRENCH LEFT IT 



corners, snuggeries, or screens — all drinking must 
be done at the bar and in full view of the 
passers-by. Perhaps these rules discouraged the 
saloonkeepers from any attempt to attract the better 
class of custom. At any rate the glitter of mirrors 
and of cut glass was notably absent and the sheen 

of mahogany 
was more ap- 
parent in the 
complexions of 
the patrons 
than on the 
woodwork of 
the bar. They 
were frankly 
rough, frontier 
whisky shops, 
places that 
cater to men 
who want drinik 
rather than 
companion- 
ship, and who 
when tired of 
standing at the 
bar can get out. 
Accordingly 
most of the 
saloons were in 




THE RELAXATION OF PAY DAY 



348 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




CONVICTS BUILDING A COMMISSION ROAD 
The excellence of these roads should be an object lesson to Central America 



the day laborer quarters, and it was seldom indeed 
that a "gold employee" or salaried man above the 
grade of day laborer was seen in one. The saloons 
paid a high license tax which was appropriated to 
the schools of the Zone, and they were shut sharp 
at eleven o'clock because, as the chief of police 
explained, "we want all the laborers fit and hearty 
for work when the morning whistle blows". 

That is the keynote of all law and rule on the 
Zone — to keep the employees fit for work. If morals 
and sobriety are advanced why so much the better, 
but they are only by-products of the machine which 
is set to grind out so many units of human labor 
per working day. 

Unhappily all the safeguards made and provided 
on the Zone are missing in the code by which the 
saloons of Colon and Panama are regulated — if a 
wide-open policy is to be described as regulation. 
These two towns at the two ends of the Panama 



Railroad are, .one or the other, within an hour's 
ride of any village on the line. Their saloons are 
many, varied and largely disreputable. The more 
sequestered ones have attached to them the evils 
which commonly hang about low drinking places, 
and the doors swing hospitably open to the resident 
of the Zone, whether he be a Canal worker or a 
soldier or marine from one of the camps. 

The uniformed men are more in evidence than 
they ought to be — more than they would be if an 
erratic and uninformed public sentiment at home 
had not led Congress to close the army canteens in 
which the soldier could have his beer or light wine 
amid orderly surroundings. If the good ladies of 
the W. C. T. U. who hold the abolition of the army 
canteen one of their triumphs could see the sur- 
roundings into which the enlisted man is driven, and 
know the sort of stuff he is led to drink, they might 
doubt the wisdom of their perfected work. But 



EVIL EFFECT OF THE ABOLITION OF THE CANTEEN 



345 



as one after another Secretaries of War and Generals 
of the Army have unavaihngly pleaded for a return 
to the canteen system, it is unlikely that facts 
presented by a mere writer will have any effect on 
the narrow illiberality which prompted the Con- 
gressional action. 

It is a curious fact that in the tropics where one 
would expect to find cooling rather than heating 
beverages as a rule the demand is chiefly for the 
"hard stuff." The walls of the saloons, the floors 
of the cantinas, or native drinking places, are covered 
with bottles or barrels of whisky, rum, brandy and 
gin. Only in places frequented by the Spanish and 
Italians are the lighter wines often seen. The 
Jamaica negro is devoted to the rum of his country, 



and one sees him continually in the most unexpected 
places producing a quart bottle from some mysterious 
hiding place in his scanty clothing, and benevolently 
treating his crowd. In excess — and that is what he 
aims at — it makes him quarrelsome and a very fair 
share of the 7000 annual arrests on the Zone are 
due to the fortuitous combination of the two chief 
products of Jamaica — rum and the black. It is 
doubtful, however, whether the Jamaican coiold be 
kept to his work without his tipple, and it was for 
that reason that the unusual expedient of permitting 
liquor selling on a government reservation was 
adopted. 

The Commissary branch of the Subsistence De- 
partment is a colossal business run by the govern- 




Phato by I'ndcTirood & Underwood ^ 

CONSTRUCTION WORK SHOWING CONCRETE CARRIERS AND MOULDS 
The buckets containing concrete are controlled from a station in the steel scaffolding — run out, stopped and emptied at the proper point 



350 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




HOW THE NATIVES GATHER COCOANUTS 

ment for the good of the dwellers on the Zone. 
It gathers together from the ends of the earth every- 
thing needful for these pampered wards of Uncle 
Sam, and sells its stock practically at cost price. 
From pins to pianos, from pigs-knuckles to pate de 



foie gras you can get every article of use or luxury 
at the Commissary. At least you can in theory, 
in fact the statement needs toning down a little, 
for you will hear plenty of grumbling on the Zone 
about the scanty satisfaction derived from shopping 
in "that old Commissary." 

All the same its activites are amazing. It launders 
linen at prices that make the tourist who has to 
pay the charges of the Tivoli Laundry envy the 
employees their privileges. It bakes bread, cake and 
pies for the whole 65,000 of the working population, 
and does it with such nice calculation that there is 
never an overstock and the bread is always fresh. 
Everything of course is done by machinery. Knead- 
ing dough for bread and mixing cement and gravel 
to make concrete are merely co-ordinate tasks in 
the process of building the Canal and both are 
performed in the way to get the best results in the 
least time. Everything is done by wholesale, 
Hamburger steak is much liked on the Isthmus, 
so the Commissary has a neat machine which makes 
500 pounds of it in a batch. That reminds me, of 
a hostess who preferred to make her own Hamburger 
steak, and so told her Jamaica cook to mince up 
a piece of beef. Being disquieted by the noise of 
chopping, she returned to the kitchen to find the 
cook diligently performing the appointed task with 
a hatchet. 

In the icy depths of the cold storage plant at 
Cristobal, where the temperature hovers around 14 
degrees, while it is averaging 96 outside, you walk 
through long avenues of dressed beef, broad pergolas 
hung with frozen chicken, ducks and game, sunken 




Pboto by Elliott 



LOOKING DOWN MIRAFLOEES LOCKS 



SOME FIGURES CONCERNING THE COMMISSARY SERVICE 



351 



gardens of cabbage, carrots, cauliflower and other 
vegetable provender. You come to a spot where a 
light flashes fitfully from an orifice which is presently 
closed as a man bows his head before it. He 
straightens up, the light flashes and is again blotted 
out. You find, on closer approach, two men testing 
eggs by peering through them at an electric light. 
Betwixt them they gaze thus into the very soul of 
this germ of life 30,000 times a day, for thus many 
eggs do they handle. Yet the odds are that neither 
has read the answer to the riddle, "did the first hen 
lay the first egg, or the first egg hatch the first 
chicken?" Unless relieved by some such philo- 
sophical problem to occupy the mind one might 
think the egg tester's job would savor of monotony. 
^ Out of the railroad yards at Cristobal at 3.45 
every morning starts the Commissary train, usually 
of 21 cars, 1 1 of which are refrigerated. Its business 
is to deliver to all the consumers along the 47 miles 
of Canal villages and camps the supplies for the day. 
Nineteen stores, and as many kitchens, messes and 
hotels, must be supplied. Ice must be delivered to 
each household by eight in the morning. Ice is one 
of the things that the employees do not get free, 
but though nature has no share in making it, they 
get it cheaper than our own people, for whom nature 
mantifactures it gratis and a few men monopolize 
the supply. 

If one is fond of big figures the records of the 
Commissary Department furnish them. The bakery 
for example puts forth over 6,000,000 loaves of bread, 
651,844 rolls and 114,134 pounds of cake annually. 
Panama is a clean country. Every tourist exclaims 
at the multitudinous companies of native women 
perpetually washing at the river's brink and in the 




HOSPITAL AT BUCAS 

interior I never saw a native hut without quantities 
of wash spread out to dry. But the Commissary 
laundry beats native industry with a record in one 
year of 3,581 ,923 pieces laundered — and it isn't much 
of a climate for "biled" shirts and starched collars 
either. There is a really enterprising proposition 
under consideration for the retention of this laundry. 
A ship going west would land all its lavmdry work 
at Cristobal and by the time it had made the pass- 
age of the Canal — 10 hours — all would be delivered 
clean at Balboa via the railroad. East bound 
ships would send their laundry from Balboa by rail. 




Fhoto by Underwood & Underwood 



NEW AMERICAN DOCKS AT CRISTOBAL 



35^ 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



It is an amazing 
•climate for ice 
cream, however, 
.and the Commis- 
sary supplied 
110,208 gallons 
•of that. Some 
other annual 
figures that help 
to complete the 
picture of mere 
size are butter, 
429,267 pounds; 
eggs, 792,043 
dozen; poultry, 
560,000 pounds; 
flour, 320,491 
pounds. 

As I said be- 
fore, the popula- 
tion of the Zone, 

fed mainly through the Commissary, numbers about 
■65,000. When one reads of the quantity of food 
needed one wonders at the skill and energy that 
must have been employed in our Civil War to keep 
armies of 300,000 and more in the field. However, in 




\^i,>Sr-^£:' i~ 



OX METHOD or TRANSPORTATION 



those days per- 
haps eggs and ice 
cream did not 
figure in the 
Commissariat, 
and we have no 
statistics as to 
poultry, though 
the poet laureate 
of Sherman's 
army referred 
feelingly to "how 
the turkeys 
gobbled that our 
Commissaries 
found." 

The Commis- 
sary is not wholly 
popular. Native 
shop keepers, of 
course, are against 
it. For a time Zone employees were permitted to 
use their books of coupons for purchases in native 
stores, the storekeepers afterwards exchanging them 
for cash at the Commissary. This practice for some 
reason has been ruled out, and the native stores lost 
a certain amount of trade by the ruling. Nor are 
the natives the only discontented ones. 

Americans in Panama, not 
in the employ of the Isthmian 
Canal Commission, are in- 
clined to grumble because 



^.t IS".j,v..ay. ' !a^ '^^'i 




ROAD MAKING BY CONVICTS 



THE INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT ON THE COMMISSARY 



353 



they are not permitted to make purchases at the 
Commissary. That, however, was a matter of 
serious agreement between the United States and 
the Republic of Panama. When the United States 
first announced its purpose of taking 
over the Zone and building the 
Canal, there was joy among the 
business folks of Panama and Colon. 
They saw fat pickings in purveying 
the necessities of life for a new popu- 
lation of considerable size. Visions 
of the return of the flush times of 
the French engaged their imagina- 
tions. All these pleasurable anticipa- 
tions were doused under the wet 
blanket of the Commissary into which 
goes the major part of the spending 
money of the employees. But there 
are Americans on the Zone, other 
than employees and their families, 
and these by a solemn international 
compact are handed over to the Panamanian 
mercies. To buy at the Commissary you must have 
a coupon book, and without an employee's number 



all very well, but lacks in those superfluities for 
which every one yearns. The two governments, 
by the way, which protected the Panama merchants 
against American competition also protected a hand- 





ENTEANCE TO BOUQUETTE VALLEY 

and brass check no coupon book will be forthcoming. 
Of course many evade the rule by borrowing a book 
■from a friend, but after one has thus evaded the 
provisions of a treaty, one usually finds there is 
nothing special to buy after all. My own opinion 
is that for the necessities of life the Commissary is 



COCOANUT PALMS NEAR ANCON 

ful of Panamanians in their clutch upon certain 
municipal monopolies. With the completion of its 
power house at Gatun the Canal Commission will 

have a great volume of power 
to sell or waste. Wasted it 
will have to be, for a group of 
capitalists control the light and 
power company in Panama 
City, and the United States 
has agreed not to compete 
with them. 

Salaries on the Zone during 
the period of the "big job" 
were much higher than in the 
States, but it is probable that 
upon reorganization they will 
be materially reduced for those 
who remain in permanent 
service — of these Col. Goethals 
reckons that there will be for 
the Canal alone about 2700. 
If the Panama Railroad organization should be 
kept up to its present strength there wlU be in all 
about 7700 men employed. This is altogether 
unlikely however. The railroad will no longer 
have the construction work and debris of the 
Canal to carry, and the ships will take much of its 



354 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



commercial business away. During the construction 
period the wages paid were as follows: 

Col. Goethals $21,000 

Other Commissioners, each 14,000 

Clerks $ 75 to $250 monthly 

Foremen 75 " 275 

Engineers 225 " 600 

Draftsmen 100 " 250 

Master mechanics 225 " 275 

Physicians 150 " 300 

Teachers , 60 " no 

Policemen 80 " 107.50 

The minimum wage of a gold employee is $75 a 
month ; the maximum, except in the case of heads of 
departments, $600. The hourly pay in some sample 
trades was, blacksmith, 30 to 75 cents; bricklayers, 
65 cents; carpenters, 32 to 65 cents; iron workers, 
44 to 70 cents; painters, 32 to 65 cents; plumbers, 
32 to 75 cents. In the higher paid trades steam 
engineers earned $75 to $200 a month; locomotive 
engineers from $125 to $210, and steam shovel 
engineers $210 to $240. 

Some of the hourly rates are said to be nearly 
double those paid in the United 
States, and the workers 
had the added advan- 
tages of free quarters 





NATIVE RELIGIOUS PROCESSION 
The figure of the Savior is faintly shown behind the 



Pholo by Underwood & UndcTwood 

OPENING THE COCOANUT 

The natives cut open the green nuts witli swift cuts of their 
heavy machetes. A miss would cost a finger 

and the other perquisites of employment heretofore 
described. 

The Canal Zone is not a democracy. It has no 
constitution so far as its residents are concerned. 
There are no elections and no elected officers. 
Naturally, however, it must needs have a govern- 
ment, though the individual will of Col. Goethals 

has sufficient 
authority to 
override that 
government if 
he chooses to 
exert it. But 
for the orderly 
discharge of 
public business 
there exists the 
Department of 
Civil Admin- 
istration with 
Commissioner 
Maurice H . 
Thatcher as its 
chief during 
the last year of 
AT CHORRERA the construc- 

central crucifix, riding on a mule tive work. 



THE POLICE SYSTEM OF THE ZONE 



355 




RICE STACKED FOR DRYING 

Gov. Thatcher was appointed in 1909 and brought 
his department to a high state of efSciency. This 
department has supervision over the posts, revenues 
and customs, the police and fire departments, the 
Division of Public Works, and schools, churches and 
the judiciary. 
There were, 
during the 
period of 
greatest activ- 
ity, 17 post 
offices on the 
Zone. The 
stamps used 
are Panama 
stamps, pur- 
chased from 
the RepubUc at 
40 per cent of 
their face value 
and with the 
words ' ' Canal 
Zone" printed 
across their 
face. Stamps 
to the amount 
of about $80,- 



000 were sold annually and the mone}'' order business 
during the active years exceeded $5,000,000 annu- 
ally, most of which represented the savings of the 
workers. 

The Zone police force compels admiration. It is 
not spectacular, but is eminently business-like and 
with the heterogeneous population with which it 
has to deal it has no doubt been busy. At the outset 
President Roosevelt sent down to command it an 
old time Rough Rider comrade of his. In late years 
a regular army officer has been Chief of Pohce. 
At that period it was a problem. Not only was the 
population rough and of mixed antecedents, but 
many foreign nations were looking on the Isthmus 
as an excellent dumping place for their criminals and 
other undesirable citizens. It was not quite Botany 
Bay, but bade fair to rival that unsavory penal colony. 
Closer scrutiny of applicants for employment checked 
that tendency, and a vigorous enforcement of the 
criminal law together with the application of the 
power to deport undesirables soon reduced the popu- 
lation to order. 

In the early days crimes of violence were common. 
If one carried money it was wise to carry a gun as 
well. Organized bandits used to tear up the railroad 
tracks and wantonly destroy property for no reason 




BULLOCK CART IN CHORRERA 



356 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



save to satisfy a grudge against the Commission. 
But the organization of the police force stopped it 
all. In the cities of Colon and Panama is little or 
no public gambling, and the brood of outlaws that 
follow the 
goddess 
chance are 
not to be 
found there. 
On the Zone 
is no gam- 
bling at all. 
Even private 
poker games, 
if they be- 
come habitU' 
al, are broken 
up by quiel 
warningsfrom 
the police. It 
isn't that 
there is any 
great moral 
aversion to 
poker, but 
men who sit 
up all night 
with cards 
and chips are 
not good at 
the drawing 
board or with 
a transit the 
next day. 
Everything 
on the Zone, 
from the food 
in the Com- 
missary to the 
moral code, is 
designed with 

an eye single to its effect on the working capacity 
of the men. It is a fortunate thing that bad morals 
do not as a rule conduce to industrial efficiency, else 
I shudder at what Col. Goethals might be tempted 
to do to the Decalogue. 

The police force in its latter days was in the com- 
mand of a regular army officer. In 1913 it numbered 




Photo bif Underwood & Underwood 

SUN SETTING IN THE ATLANTIC AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT 



332 policemen, two inspectors and a chief. Of the 
policemen 90 were negroes, all of whom had been in 
the West India constabulary or in West Indian 
regiments of the British army. The white policemen 

had all served 
in the United 
States army, 
navy or ma- 
rine corps. 
The men are 
garbed in 
khaki, and 
look more like 
cavalrymen 
than police 
officers — in- 
deed a stal- 
wart, well-set- 
up body of a 
high order of 
intelligence 
and excellent 
carriage. Ar- 
rests are 
numerous, 
yet not more 
so than in an 
American city 
of 65,000 
people. Of 
about 150 
convicts 
nearly all are 
black and 
these are em- 
ployed in the 
construction 
of roads with- 
in the Zone. 
The work of 
the police is 
greatly expedited by the celerity of practice in the 
courts. That Anglo-Saxon fetish, trial by jury, is 
religiously observed, but the juries are of three 
men instead of twelve and are held strictly to the 
consideration of questions of fact alone. There is 
a full equipment of civil and criminal courts with 
an appellate division, but no appeal lies to the 



THE SCHOOL SYSTEM OF THE ZONE 



357 



courts of the United States. There do not seem to 
be many lawyers in the Zone, hence there is httle 
litigation — or perhaps because there is little litiga- 
tion there are few lawyers. It is always a mooted 
question whether lawyers are the cause or the effect 
of litigation, the bane or the antidote. 

Children thrive 
on the Canal 
Zone. Nearly 
every visitor who 
has had the time 
to go into the 
residence sections 
of Culebra, Gor- 
gona and other 
large Canal 
villages has ex- 
claimed at the 
number of chil- 
dren visible and 
their uniform 
good health. 
Naturally there- 
fore a school 
system has grown 
up of which 
Americans , who 
lead the world in. 
public education, 
may well be 
proud. Three 
thousand pupils 
are enrolled, and 
besides a super- 
intendent and 
general officials, 
eighty teachers 
attend to their 
education. The 
school buildings 
are planned and 

equipped according to the most approved require- 
ments for school hygiene, and are especially adapted 
to the tropics — which means that the rooms are 
open to the air on at least two sides, and that wide 
aisles and spaces between the desks give every child 
at least twice the air space he would have had in a 
northern school. 




THE FRUITFUL MANGO TREE 



The children like their elders come in for the 
beneficence of the Commission. Free books, free 
stationery, free medical treatment and free transpor- 
tation are provided for all. Prof. Frank A. Gause, 
superintendent of the Zone schools, is an Indianian 
and has taken a justifiable pride in developing the 

school system 
there so that it 
shall be on a par 
with the school 
of lil<e grades in 
"the States." He 
declares that so 
far as the colored 
schools are con- 
cerned they are 
of a higher degree 
of excellence than 
those in our more 
northern com- 
munities. Native 
and West Indian 
children attend 
the schools of this 
class, in which the 
teachers are 
colored men who 
have graduated in 
the best West 
Indian colleges 
and who have had 
ample teaching 
experience in 
West Indian 
schools. 

The curriculum 
of the Zone 
schools covers all 
the grades up to 
the eighth, that 
is the primary 
and grammar school grades, and a well-conducted 
high school as well. Pupils have been prepared for 
Harvard, Wellesley, Vassar and the University of 
Chicago. The white schools are all taught by 
American teachers, each of whom must have had 
four years' high school training, two years in either 
a university or a normal school and two years of. 



358 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Photo by UTlderwood & VnUtrwood 

COMPLETED CANAL NEAR GATUN 

practical teaching experience. These requirements 
are obviously higher than those of the average 
American city school system. Prof. Gause declares 
that politics and the recommendation of politicians 

have no share in the adminis- _ _ _ 

tration of the Zone schools, 
though the efforts of Washing- 
ton statesmen to place their 
relatives on the payroll have 
been frequent and persistent. 
For the native and West 
Indian children a course in 
horticulture is given and school 
gardens established in which 
radishes, beans, peas, okra, 
papayas, bananas, turnips, 
cabbages, lettuce, tomatoes, 
and yams are cultivated. It 
is worth noting that consider- 
able success has been achieved 
with products of the temperate 
zone, though especial care was 
needed for their cultivation. 
One garden of three-quarters 
of an acre produced vegetables 
worth $350. There is a ten- 



dency among Americans on the 
Zone to decry the soil as unfit 
for any profitable agriculture. 
A very excellent report on 
The Agricultural Possibilities 
of the Canal Zone", issued by 
the Department of Agricul- 
ture, should effectually still 
this sort of talk. To the mere 
superficial observer it seems in- 
credible that a soil which pro- 
duces such a wealth of useless 
vegetation should be unable to 
produce anything useful, and 
the scientists of the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture have 
shown that that paradoxical 
condition does not exist. 
Practically all our northern 
vegetables and many of our 
most desirable fruits can be 
raised on the Zone according 
to this report, and it goes on to say: 

" Opportunities for establishing paying dairy herds 
appear good, . . . there is unquestionably a good 
opening for raising both pork and poultry. Small 




i^uuiAj oy unuvru.uua tfc Uncicrwuod 

TRAVELLING CRANES AT MIRAFLORES 



AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES ON THE ZONE 



359 



farming, including the 
production of vegetables 
and choice tropical 
fruits, such as the avo- 
cado, mango, papaya, 
pineapple, orange, gua- 
va, anona, etc., can be 
carried on profitably 
with the application of 
intensive methods, 
coupled with proper 
care in the selection of 
crop varieties and soil. 
The supply of pine- 
apples, avocados, and 
papayas is very much 
below the demand, not- 
withstanding the fact 
that these fruits are 

apparently well adapted to a considerable portion 
of the Zone. With the introduction of varieties of 
mangos better than the seedling types now grown 
this fruit could be made very much more popular 
with the northern population. As an evidence of 
the good opportunities for the production of choice 




PACIFIC FLATS LEFT BY RECEDING TIDE 
The fall is i8 feet and the receding tide leaves more than a mile thus bare 

fruits not only to supply local demand, but for 
export trade, the Island of Taboga in Panama may be 
cited. Here upon very steep slopes, including much 
extremely stony land, large quantities of delight- 
fully flavored pineapples are grown for shipment. 
The mango and avocada (aguacate) are also shipped 

from this small island 
with profit". 

Consideration of 
the agricultural and 
industrial possibilities 
of the Canal Zone is 
made desirable, indeed 
imperative, by the 
proposition of the 
military authorities 
to abandon the whole 
territory to the jungle 
— to expel from it 
every human being 
not employed by the 
Canal Commission 
or the Panama 
Railroad, or not 
having business of 
some sort in con- 
nection with those 
organizations. This 
was not in con- 




XHE REVIEW AT ONE OF THE ROOSEVELT RECEPTIONS 



36o 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




A WHALER AT PEARL ISLAND 

templation in the early days of the Zone. It was 
planned to invite settlement, though retaining the 
actual ownership of the land to the United States. 
By way of encouraging such settlement the Isthmian 
Commission was authorized to lease to settlers farms 
not exceeding 50 hectares (125 acres) each, at an 
annual rental of $3 a hectare. This was not par- 
ticularly attractive and the proposition was made 
less so by limiting the period of leases to twenty-five 
years. Moreover the limitation on the size of the 
individual farm made cattle farming quite impossible, 
and even ordinary farming doubtful, for in 50 hec- 
tares the actual area of good farming land is likely 
to be small. Although criticism of these provisions 
was current, in 1913 nothing was done for their 
correction because of the vigor with which the 
military authorities urged the entire depopulation 
of the Zone. 

That proposition has not yet come before the 
American people. It has not even been debated in 
Congress, but at the moment of the publication of 
this book the Commission is proceeding calmly with 
its arrangements, as though the program were 
definitely fixed. The argument advanced by Col. 
Goethals and other military experts is that the 
Canal is primarily a military work. That the Canal 
Zone exists only because of and for the Canal, and 
should be so governed as to protect the dams and 
locks from any treacherous assault is admitted. 
The advocates of the depopulation program insist 
that with a residence on the Zone refused to any 
save those employed by the Commission and subject 
to its daily control, with the land grown up once 



more into an impenetrable jungle so that access to 
the Canal can be had only through its two ends, or 
by the Panama Railroad — both easily guarded — 
the Canal will be safe from the dynamiter hired by 
some hostUe government. 

It may be so, but there is another side to the 
question. The Canal Zone is an outpost of a high 
civilization in the tropics. It affords object lessons 
to the neighboring republics of Central America 
in architecture, sanitation, road building, education, 
civil government and indeed all the practical arts 
that go to make a State comfortable and prosperous. 
Without intention to offend any of the neighboring 
States it may fairly be said that the Zone, if main- 
tained according to its present standards, should 
exercise an influence for good on all of them. It is 
the little leaven that may leaven the whole lump. 

That it can be maintained with its present popula- 
tion is of course impossible. When the employ- 
ment, furnished by the construction of the Canal 
is finished, the army of engineers and laborers will 
disintegrate and scatter to other fields of industry. 
This process is already begun. Our government in 




AN OLD WELL AT CmRIQUI 



FUTURE POSSIBILITIES OP THE CANAL ZONE 



361 



securing labor from the West India islands assumed 
the task of returning the laborers to their homes at 
the expiration of their term of service and this is 
now being done, though not so rapidly as would 
have been the case except for the persistent activity 
of the slides at Culebra. It has been suggested that 
gifts of land, instead of passage money home, would 
be acceptable to these laborers, not merely West 
Indians, but Europeans as well. Thrown open to 
settlement under proper conditions the Zone would 
no doubt attract a certain class of agriculturists 
from the States. 

Undoubtedly there will be a field for skilled 
agricultural endeavor there. As I have already 
noted Col. Goethals estimates the necessary force 
for the operation of the Canal at 2700. For the 
operation of the Panama Railroad in 19 13 five thou- 
sand men were required but with the cessation of 
Canal work this number would be largely reduced. 
Probably 6000 men would constitute the working 
force of both Canal and railroad. A working force 
of that number would create a population of about 
15,000. There is further the military force to be 



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A GOOD YIELD OF COCOANUTS 



CIIOLO GIRLS AT THE STREAM 

considered. Col. Goethals strenuously urged that 
25,000 men be kept on the Isthmus permanently, 
but the opinion of Congress, toward the period of 
the opening of the Canal, seemed to be that about 
7000 would be sufficient. In all probability the 
latter figure will be the smallest number of men that 
will go to make up the military establishment. 

There is every reason to believe that at Balboa 
particularly the shipping interests will create a large 
and prosperous town, while already the cities of 
Panama and Colon, geographically part of the Zone, 
though politically independent, have a population 
of at least 60,000. 

When the Canal is once in operation there will 
be from 75,000 to 100,000 people on the Zone 
and in the two native cities within it to fur- 
nish a market for the food products that can be 
raised on that fertile strip of land. Today the 
vegetables of the temperate zone are brought 3000 
miles to the Zone dwellers, sometimes in cold storage, ' 
but chiefly in cans. As for those who live in the 
Panama towns and are denied access to the Com- 
missary, they get fresh vegetables only from the 
limited supply furnished by the few Chinese market 
gardens. According to the Department of Agri- 
culture nearly all vegetables of the temperate clime 
and all tropical fruits can be grown on the Zone 
lands. This being the case it seems a flat aft'ront 
to civilization and to the intelligent utilization of 
natural resources to permit these lands to revert 
to the jungle, and force our citizens and soldiers 
in these tropic lands to go without the health-giving 



362 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



vegetable food that could easily be raised in the 
outskirts of their towns and camps. Of the suf- 
ficiency of the market for the output of all the 
farms for which the Zone has space and arable soil 
there can be no doubt, for to the townspeople, the 
Canal operatives and the garrisons there will be 
added the ships which reach Colon or Balboa after 
long voyages and with larders empty of fresh green 
vegetables. 

To the mind not wholly given over to militarism 
the idea that this region in which so admirable, so 
unparalleled a beginning of industrial development 
has been made should be now abandoned is intoler- 
able. And it does not seem at all plausible that 
our locks and dams and spillways would be safer 



in a wilderness patrolled by perfunctory guards 
than they would be in a well-settled and thriv- 
ing community every man in which would know 
that his prosperity was wholly dependent upon 
the peaceful and uninterrupted operation of the 
Canal. 

Doubtless there will be some discussion before 
acquiescence is given to the military proposition 
that the Canal Zone — as large as the State of 
Indiana — shall be allowed to revert to jungle, be 
given over to the serpent, the sloth and the jaguar. 
That would be a sorry anti-climax to the work of 
Gorgas in banishing yellow fever and malaria, and 
of Goethals in showing how an industrial community 
could be organized, housed and fed. 



&■ ;.: 




Photo by C ndtfuuod it Uiidtrwood 



SHIPPING AT BALBOA DOCKS 



CHAPTER XIX 



FORTIFICATIONS; TOLLS; COMMERCE AND QUARANTINE 




ITH the completion of 
the Canal appeared 
many problems 
other than the en- 
gineering ones which 
had for so many 
years engrossed pub- 
lic attention. Some 
of these problems — 
Hke the question whether the Canal should be 
fortified or its neutrality guaranteed by inter- 
national agreement — had reached a conclusion dur- 
ing the last year of the constructive 
work. But the question of Canal 
tolls, the future management 
of the Canal Zone and the 
broad speculation as to 
the general effect up- 
on the trade of the 
world were still 
subjects of dis- 
cussion. 

- That there 
should have been 
any serious op- 
position to the 
fortification of the 
Canal seems 
amazing, but the 
promptitude with 
which it died out 
seems to indicate that, 
while noisy, it had no 
very solid foundation in 
public sentiment. Indeed it 
was urged mainly by well-meaning 
theorists who condemn upon prin- 
ciple any addition to the already 
heavy burden which the need for 



EXPLAINING IT TO THE BOSS 



undeniable. Perhaps the greatest anomaly of the 
twentieth century is the proportions of our prepara- 
tions for war contrasted with our oratorical protesta- 
tions of a desire for peace. But the inconsistencies 
of the United vStates are trivial in comparison with 
those of other nations, and while the whole world is 
armed — nominally for defense, but in a way to 
encourage aggressions — it is wise that the United 
States put bolts on its front gate. And that in 
effect is what forts and coast defenses are. They 
are not aggressive, and cannot be a menace to any 
one — either to a foreign land, as a great navy might 
conceivably be, or to our people, as a 
great standing army might prove. 
The guns at Toro Point and 
Naos Island will never 
speak, save in ceremo- 
nial salute, unless some 
foreign foe menaces 
the Canal which 
the United States 
gives freely to 
the peaceful 
trade of the 
world. But if the 
menace should be 
presented, it will 
be well not for our 
nation alone, but 
for all the peoples of 
the earth, that we are 
prepared to defend the 
integrity of the strait of 
which man has dreamed for 
more than 400 years, and in 
the creation of which thousands of 
useful lives have been sacrificed. 

Mistaken but well-meaning op- 
ponents of fortification have in- 




the national defense has laid upon the shoulders of sisted that it was a violation of our pact with Great 
the people. That in theory they were right is Britain, and a breach of international comity. This, 

363 



364 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Photo itjj American Press Ass'ti 



SPANISH MONASTERY AT PANAMA 



however, is an error. True, in the Clayton-Bulwer 
treaty of 1850, both the United States and Great 
Britain expressly agreed not to fortify or assume any 
dominion over any part of Cen- 
tral America through which a 
canal might be dug. Btit that 
treaty was expressly abrogated 
by the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. 
In its first draft this latter 
treaty contained the anti-forti- 
fication clause and was rejected 
by the United States Senate for 
that very reason. In its second 
draft the treaty omitted the 
reference to fortifications and 
was ratified. Lord Lansdowne, 
one of the negotiators for the 
British government, explicitly 
said that he thoroughly under- 
stood the United States wished 

to reserve the right to fortify p;,„„,,^.p,„,„ ,.„„„„, 
the Canal. choco indian of 



It was so clear that no question of treaty obliga- 
tions was involved that the opponents of fortifica- 
tion early dropped that line of argument. The dis- 
cussion of the treaty in the Sen- 
ate silenced them. They fell 
back upon the question of ex- 
pediency. "Why", they asked, 
"go to the expense of building 
and manning fortifications and 
maintaining a heavy garrison 
on the Zone? Why not, through 
international agreement, 
make it neutral and protect 
it from seizure or blockade 
in time of war? Look at Suez " ! 
This was more plausible. 
At first glance the questions 
seem answerable in only one 
way. But consideration weak- 
ens their force. There is a 
Latin copy-book maxim, " Iii- 

In 




XuUiinal GLOQraphic Magazine 
SANBU VALLEY 



ter annas silent leges''- 



WHY FORTIFY THE CANAL AT ALL? 



365 



time of war the law is silent". It 
is cynically correct. International 
agreements to maintain the integrity 
or neutrality of a territory last only 
until one of the parties to the agree- 
ment thinks it profitable to break it. 
It then becomes the business of all 
the other parties to enforce the pact, 
and it is usually shown that what 
is everybody's business is nobody's 
business. Consider a partial record : 

The independence of Korea was 
guaranteed by four Great Powers in 
1902. Inside of two years the Jap- 
anese Admiral Uriu violated the in- 
dependence of the Korean port of 
Chemulpo by sinking two Russian 
cruisers in it, and shortly thereafter Japan practically 
annexed the country. None of the Powers that had 
"guaranteed" its independence protested. 

Austria-Hungary in 1908 annexed Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, despite the fact that seven Powers, in- 
cluding Austria-Hungary herself, had fixed the 
sovereignty of those provinces in Turkey. The 
signatory powers grumbled a little, but that was all. 
Mr. W. E. Hall, recognized as the greatest living 




authority on international law, ob- 
serves cynically, and truthfully, 
that "treaties are only permanently 
obeyed when they represent the con- 
tinued wishes of the contracting 
parties". 

Prussia once guaranteed the inde- 
pendence of Poland, and in two 
years took the leading part in blot- 
ting it off the roll of nations. 

Illustrations of the failure of na- 
tions to observe the rights of neu- 
trals are common. Turkey and 
Korea afford recent illustrations of 
nations that have entrusted their 
national integrity to international 
agreements. Nothing remains of 

Korea's nationality but a name, and the Allies are 

rapidly carving Turkey to bits while the Great 

Powers that guaranteed her integrity look on in 

amazed and impotent alarm. The 

United States itself has not been 

wholly without share in such 

high-handed proceedings. 

In the event of a 



GENERATIUX" 




ANCON HILL, WHERE AMERICANS LIVE IN COMFORT 



366 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



Panama Canal would be kept neutral just 'so long as 
our military and naval power could defend its 
neutrality and no longer. 

Moreover, we do not want it neutral in a quarrel 
in which we are involved. The Canal is dug by our 
money and in our territory and is part of our line of 
defense. We do not propose to permit its passage 
by an enemy. That would be strict neutrality in- 
deed, but it would make the Canal a weakness in- 
stead of a defense. Without it our Pacific Coast is 
practically safe from European aggression; our At- 
lantic coast protected by thousands of miles of ocean 
from any foe whose naval strength is in the Pacific. 
To throw open the Canal to our foes as well as to 
our friends would be like supplying the key to the 
bank vaults to the cracksmen as well as to the cashier. 

The parallel with the Suez Canal strenuously urged 
by the advocates of neutrality does not hold. The 
waterway between the Mediterranean and the Red 



Sea was not dug as a government enterprise. It 
was a distinctly commercial enterprise, with its 
shares listed upon the exchanges and bought and 
sold in the open market. By the purchase of a 
majority of those shares the ownership of the Canal 
passed into the hands of the British governmiCnt, but 
all the nations had joined in the international agree- 
ment to protect their individual rights before the 
British ownership was effected. Moreover, Great 
Britain is by no means content with the safeguards 
provided by the Constantinople convention, but has 
planted her great fortresses at Malta and at Aden, 
near the ends of the Canal, and maintains in the 
Mediterranean a naval force equal to that of any 
other two nations. The Caribbean is to be the 
American Mediterranean, and the visible and effec- 
tive power of the United States in those waters 
must be equal, probably vastly superior, to that of 
England in Europe's great inland sea. 




an yVti5 Ass n 



GATUN LAKE, SHOWING SMALL FLOATING ISLANDS 



THE SUEZ CANAL NO PARALLEL 



367 



• Nor does the existence of a powerful navy, even 
the material multiplication of our present naval 
force, obviate to any considerable degree 
the necessity for powerful forts at 
either end of the Canal. Our fleet 
cannot be anchored during the 
continuance of a war to any 
one fixed point. The navy is 
essentially an offensive 
force, its part in the de 
fense of otir country be- 
ing best performed by 
keeping the enemy busy 
defending his own. Far- 
ragut said that the best 
defense against the at- 
tack of any enemy is the 
rapid fire of your own 
guns. Extend this prin- 
ciple and it appears that 
the best way to defend our 
own coasts is to menace those 
of the enemy. This principle 
was not applied in our recent 
war with Spain, but we had not 
the navy then, and diplomatic con- 
siderations further intervened to pre 
vent our employing against Spain's sea 
coast cities such vessels as we had. Should 
we rely wholly en the navy to defend our 
Canal entrances a mere demonstration against those 
points would tie up a considerable portion of our 
floating force, while an enemy's main fleet might 
ravage our thickly populated sea coasts. 




Discussion of this question, however, is largely 
academic, for the fortification of the Canal has been 
determined upon, and construction of the 
forts is well advanced. There is, how- 
ever, some disquietude over a 
fear, expressed by the late Ad- 
miral Evans, that the topog- 
raphy at the Atlantic ter- 
minus of the Canal is such 
that fortifications, how- 
ever great their strength, 
would not be sufficient 
to prevent the enemy 
holding a position so 
near the Canal's mouth 



A SPECTACULAR BLAST 



as to be able to concen- 
trate its fire on each ship 
as it emerged and thus 
destroy seriatim any fleet 
seeking to make the pas- 
sage of the Canal . The crit- 
icism was a serious one. 
Even to the civilian mind the 
inequalities of a battle in which 
six or eight battleships can con- 
centrate their broadside fire on a 
single ship navigating a narrow and 
tortuous channel and able to reply with 
her bow guns only are sufficiently ob- 
vious. Indeed the criticism was held 
of sufficient force to be referred to the General 
Board of the Navy, which, after due consideration, 
made a report of which the following quotations 
form the substance : 




THE FIRST VIEW OF COLON 



368 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



"The General Board believes that the proposed 
fortifications at the termini of the Isthmian Canal 
would be invaluable in assisting the 
transfer of a United States fleet 
from one ocean to the other 
through the Canal, 
the face of an oppos- 
ing fleet. The 
function of the 
fortifications in this 
particular is precise- 
ly the same at the 
Canal termini as it is 
any fortified place from 
which a fleet may have 
sueinthefaceofanenemy'sfleet 

"Guns mounted on shore are on 
an unsinkable and steady platform, 
and they can be provided with unlimited protection 
and accurate range-finding devices. Guns mounted 
on board ship are on a sinkable, unsteady platform, 
their protection is limited, and range-finding devices 
on board ship have a very limited range of accuracy. 
The shore gun of equal power has thus a great 




A PORCH AT CULEBRA 



advantage over the ship gun which is universally 
recognized, and this advantage is increased if the 
former be mounted on disappearing 
;es, as are the seacoast 
uns of the United States. 
The mere statement 
of these elemen- 
tary facts is a 
sufficient proof of 
the value of sea- 
coast guns to as- 
sist a fleet in passing 
out from behind them 
to engage a waiting 
hostile fleet outside, provided 
the shore guns are mounted in 
advance of, or abreast, the point 
where the ship channel joins the 
open sea. Even if somewhat retired from that 
|Doint they would be useful, but to a less extent. 

"At the Pacific terminus of the Canal there are 
outlying islands that afford sites for fortifications, 
the usefulness of which in assisting the egress of a 
fleet in the face of opposition is universally ad- 




I'liulu by American I'rcss Ass'n 



AVENIDA CENTRALE, PANAMA, NEAR THE STATION 




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SOME DETAILS OF THE FORTIFICATIONS 



369 



mitted, as far as the General Board knows; but 
there has been unfavorable criticism of the possi- 
bilit}^ of fortifications at the Atlantic end to serve 
this purpose. The General Board regards these 
criticisms as unfounded and believes, on the con- 
trary, that the conditions at the Atlantic terminus 
of the Canal are unusually favorable for the em- 
placement of guns that would be of assistance to a 
fleet issuing in the face of hostile ships. 

"On both sides of Limon Bay, in which the Canal 
terminates at the Atlantic end, there are excellent 
sites for forts, well advanced on outlying points. 
The line joining these sites is 3000 yards in front of 
the point where the Canal prism reaches a low- water 
depth sufficient for battleships, and Limon Bay from 
this point outward is wide enough for a formation of 
eight ships abreast. The outer end of the most 
advanced breakwater proposed is only 600 yards in 
front of the line joining the sites for the forts; and 
as long as ships remain behind the breakwater, it 
will afford them a considerable amount of protection 
from the enemy's fire, while they will themselves be 





iX A CHIRIQUI TOWN 



A MOUNTAIN RIVER IN CHIRIQUI 

able to fire over it. In order to make his fire effec- 
tive against the issuing ships the enemy must come 
within the effective fire of the fortifications. Under 
these circumstances it is impossible to deny the 
usefulness of fortifications in assisting the issue of 
a fleet against opposition. The conditions in this 
respect at the Atlantic end of the Canal are in- 
comparably better than those existing at Sandy 
Hook, whose forts nobody would dream of dis- 
mantling". 

Concerning the type of fortifications now building 
there is little to be said. The War Department is 
not as eager for publicity as are certain other depart- 
ments of our federal administration. In November, 
191 2, Secretary of War Stimson made a formal state- 
ment of the general plan of defense. No change has 
been made in this plan, and it may be quoted as 
representing the general scheme as fixed upon by the 
War Department and authorized by Congress: 

"The defenses to the Isthmus are divided into two 
general heads : 

" I. A seacoast armament with submarine mines 
at the termini of the Canal, for protection against a 
sea attack and to secure a safe exit for our fleet in 
the face of a hostile fleet. 



o/^ 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



"2. The construction of field works and a mobile 
force of troops to protect the locks and assure im- 
portant utilities against an attack by land". 

"The seacoast fortifications will include 16-inch, 
14-inch and 6-inch rifles and 12-inch mortars. 
This armament will be of more powerful and effective 
types than that installed in any other locality in the 
world. At the Atlantic end of the Canal the arma- 
ment will be located on both sides of Limon Bay. 



Panama Canal Zone of a mobile force consisting 
of three regiments of infantry, at a war strength of 
nearly 2000 men for each regiment, a squadron 
of cavalry, and a battalion of field artillery. These 
latter fortifications and the mobile garrison are in- 
tended to repel any attacks that might be made 
by landing parties from an enemy's fleet against 
the locks and other important elements or accessories 
to the Canal. As an attack of this character might 




BITING THROUGH A SLIDE: FIVE CUBIC YARDS PER BITE 



At the Pacific end the greater part of the armament 
will be located on several small islands, Flamenco, 
Perico and Naos, which lie abreast of the terminus. 
Submarine mines will complete the seacoast arma- 
ment and will prevent actual entry into the Canal 
and harbors by hostile vessels. 

"In addition to these fortifications, and the 
necessary coast artillery and garrison to man them, 
the defensive plans provide for the erection of field 
works, and for the maintenance at all times on the 



be coincident with or even precede an actual dec- 
laration of war, it is necessary that a force of the 
strength above outlined should be maintained on 
the Canal Zone at all times. This mobile garrison 
will furnish the necessary police force to protect 
the Zone and preserve order within its limits in 
time of peace. Congress has made the initial ap- 
propriations for the construction of these fortifica- 
tions, and they are now under construction. A 
portion of the mobile garrison is also on the Isthmus, 



THE MOBILE FORCE ON THE ZONE 



371 



and the remainder will be sent there as soon as pro- 
vision is made for its being housed". 

It is to be noted that these plans contemplate 
only the garrisoning of the Isthmus in time of 
peace. The department has steadfastly refused, 
even in response to congressional inquiry, to make 
public its plans for action in war time. The only 
hint offered on the subject is the estimate of Col. 
Goethals that 25,000 men would be needed there 
in such a contingency and his urgency that such a 
garrison be maintained on the Zone at all times. 

The most vulnerable point of the Canal is of 
course the locks. The destruction or interruption 
of the electrical machinery which operates the great 
gates would put the entire Canal out of commission. 
If in war time it should be vitally necessary to shift 
our Atlantic fleet to the Pacific, or vice versa, the 
enemy could effectively check that operation by a 
bomb dropped on the lock machinery at Gatun, 
Pedro Miguel or Miraflores. It is, however, the uni- 
versal opinion of the military experts that this 
danger is guarded against to the utmost extent 
demanded by extraordinary prudence. Against 
the miraculous, such as the presence of an aero- 
plane with an operator so skilled as to drop 
bombs upon a target of less than 40 feet square, 
no defense could fully prevail. The lock 
gates themselves are necessarily exposed 
and an injury to them would as 



effectually put the lock out of commission as would 
the wrecking of the controlling machinery. 

Col. Goethals has repeatedly declared his belief 
that the construction of the locks is sufficiently 
massive to withstand any ordinary assaults with 
explosives. No one man could carry and place 
secretly enough dynamite to wreck or even seriously 
impair the immediate usefulness of the locks. Even 
in time of peace they will be continually guarded 
and patroled, while in time of war they will naturally 
be protected from enemies on every side and even 
in the air above. The locks are not out of range 
of a fleet in Limon Bay and a very few 13-inch 
naval shells would put them out of commission. 
But for that very reason we are building forts at 
Toro Point and its neighborhood to keep hostile 
fleets out of Limon Bay, and the United States 
navy, which has usually given a good account of 
itself in time of war, will be further charged with 
this duty and will no doubt duly discharge it. 




COMMISSARY BUILDING AND FRONT STREET, COLON 



372 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



That the locks make the Canal more vulnerable 
than a sea-level canal would have been is doubtless 
true. The fact only adds to the argument in behalf 
of defending it by powerful forts and an adequate 
navy. 

General Weaver, U. S. A., raised the only serious 
question as to the sufficiency of the defenses on the 
Pacific side in his testimony before the House 
Committeee on Appropriations : 

"My views are entirely in harmony with those 
expressed by Col. Goethals. I think that the de- 
fenses are wholly adequate. The only question I 
have noted raised as to the adequacy of the defense 
has been as to whether guns would not be mounted 
by an enemy on Taboga Island, and as to whether 
an enemy's ships could not stand behind Taboga 
Island, and as to whether these land guns and naval 
guns could not from there control the water area 
in front of the Pacific terminus? The new type of 
mortars that the Ordnance Department is making 



for the fortifications at Panama will have a range 
of 20,000 yards. They will cover the water well 
over beyond Taboga Island, and have under fire 
all of Taboga Island and the water for a considerable 
distance beyond the outermost shore lines of Taboga 
Island. It is about 12,000 yards from the fortifi- 
cations at the Canal terminus to Taboga Island. The 
mortars will reach 8000 yards beyond Taboga. 
The 16-inch gun on Perico will have a range of 
20,000 yards. The 14-inch guns on Flamenco and 
Naos Islands will have ranges of 18,400 yards. 
The 6-inch guns on Naos Island and on the main- 
land have a range of 6000 yards, and are well 
placed to oppose any attempt at landing on the 
lands on which the fortifications are located. 

"Mr. Sherley. — 'So far you have spoken only of 
the Pacific side. Now, what have you to say about 
the defense on the Atlantic side'? 

"Gen. Weaver. — 'On the Atlantic side the defense 
is, in my opinion, equally adequate. At Fort Ran- 




PEDRO MIGUEL LOCKS 
The deep arched recesses are provided that the gates may fold flush with the walls 



THE SUFFICIENCY OF FORTIFICATIONS PLANNED 



373 




DETAIL CONSTRUCTION OF A LOCK 
The great tube, later covered by concrete, carries the water for filling the chamber 



dolph, on Margarita Island, there are eight mortars 
of the new type, two 14-inch guns and two 6-inch 
guns. That armament will protect the Margarita 
Island side of the entrance and it also controls the 
waters to the south. On the Toro Point side at 
Fort Sherman we have eight mortars, two 14-inch 
guns, and two 6-inch guns. There are in addition 
two 6-inch guns provided at Manzanillo Point, city 
of Colon. In my opinion this armament is entirely 
adequate for the defense of the Atlantic side' ". 

It is apparent, therefore, that the unfortified 
Island of Taboga is the one questionable point in 
our Pacific line of defense. It is wholly probable 
that steps will be taken to erect such defenses as 
will make the seizure of this island impracticable 
to any enemy. 

Plans for the landward defenses of the coast forts 
had not been determined upon at the time of pub- 
lication of this book. Necessary no doubt from a 



strictly military point of view, they seem to the 
civilian mind rather superfluous in view of the 
character of the countryside along the borders of 
the Zone. The general who would undertake to 
lead an army through the jungle would encounter 
a natural foe such as armed forces have never had 
to overcome, and his invading column would hardly 
emerge upon the Zone in fit condition to give battle 
to any considerable army of occupation. 

However, should an enemy once effect a landing 
at any point within striking distance of Panama 
or Colon, say on the Chorrera coast, or at Nombre 
de Dios or Porto Bello, some defensive works would 
be needed to prevent their taking the coast forts 
in the rear. Such works are being planned and an 
extensive permanent camp is to be built at 
Miraflores, at which point the Canal can be readily 
crossed — there are to be no permanent bridges — 
and smaller posts at Margarita Island, Toro Point 



374 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



and Culebra Island. To man the actual seacoast 
forts there will be 12 companies of coast artillery 
of 109 men each; while distributed in the army 
camps will be, according to present estimates, three 




Plioto iy H. PUtier 



Courtesy National Geographic Magazine 



A GROUP or GUYAMI GIRLS 

regiments of infantry, a squadron of cavalry and a 
battalion of field artillery, making in all rather 
more than 8000 men. 

The probable influence of the Panama Canal on 
commerce, on trade routes, on the commercial 
supremacy of this or that country, on the develop- 
ment of hitherto dormant lands is a question that 
opens an endless variety of speculations. Discus- 
sion of it requires so broad a knowledge of inter- 
national affairs as to be almost cosmic, a foresight 
so gifted as to be prophetic. A century from now 
the fullest results of the Canal's completion will 
not have been fully attained. This creation of a 
new waterway where a rocky barrier stood from 
the infinite past in the pathway of commerce will 
make great cities where hamJets now sit in somno- 



lence, and perhaps reduce to insignificance some of 
the present considerable ports of the world. 

Certain very common misbeliefs may be cor- 
rected with merely a word or two of explanation. 
Nothing is more common than to look upon all 
South America as a territory to be vastly benefited 
by the Canal, and brought by it nearer to our 
United States markets. A moment's thought will 
show the error of this belief. When we speak of 
South America we think first of all of the rich 
eastern coast, of the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Monte- 
^ ideo and Buenos Ayres. But it is not to this section 
that the greatest advantage will come from the 
Canal. Vessels from our Pacific coast can indeed 
carry the timber of Puget Sound, the fish of Alaska 
and the Columbia River, the fruits of California 
thither more cheaply than now, but that is but a 
slight fraction of their trade. Nor are Brazil and 
the Argentine participators in Oriental trade to 
any great extent, though the Canal may make them 
so. The western coast of South America is chiefly 
affected by the Canal, and that to a degree rigidly 
limited by the distance of the point considered from 
the Straits of Magellan, and the size of the Canal 
tolls imposed. 

Nor will the Suez Canal be an abandoned water- 
way after our own cut at Panama is completed. 
It will, indeed, be not surprising to see the Suez 
Canal tonnage increase, for trade breeds trade, and 
the Panama Canal will be a stimulant as well as a 
competitor. To all of British India and Southern 
China the distance from Liverpool via Suez is less 
than via Panama, and to Melbourne, Sidney and 
other Australian ports the saving in distance via 
Panama is less than 2000 miles. The Suez Canal, 



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A ZONE SIGN OF CIVILIZATION 



EFFECT OF THE CANAL ON TRADE ROUTES 



375 



it is to be remembered, is owned by Great Britain 
and a very slight concession in rates will be all that 
is needed to keep British merchant vessels to their 
long accustomed routes. We have had a harder 
task in digging our Canal than the French had at 
Suez, but we need cherish no delusive idea that we 
are going to put the earlier waterway out of business. 
The really great material advantage which the 
United States is to derive from this monumental 
national undertaking will come from the all-water 
connection between our own Atlantic and Pacific 
coasts. A ship going from New York to San Fran- 
cisco via the Straits of Magellan traverses 14,000 
miles of sea — some of it the very most turbulent 
of all King Neptune's tossing domain. By Panama 
the same ship will have but 5000 miles to cover. 
The amazing thing is that ships are going around 
the Horn, or at least through the Straits, but the 
high rates on transcontinental railroads make even 
that protracted voyage profitable. What the Canal 
will do to transcontinental rates is a matter that is 
giving some railroad managers deep concern. It 
was in fact a consideration which led to prolonged 
and obstinate opposition to the building of any 
canal at all. Water carriage between the two 
coasts has long been a bogey to the railroad man- 
agers. When coastwise steamships on the Atlantic 
and Pacific with the Panama Railroad for a con- 
necting link offered some competition, the five 
transcontinental railways pooled together and, se- 
curing control of the Pacific Mail Steamship line 
operating between San Francisco and Panama, used 
it to cripple all competition. For a time there was 
danger that the methods then employed might be 



^ 




adopted to destroy the usefulness of the Panama 
Canal, and it was to guard against this that Con- 
gress adopted the law denying the use of the Canal 
to vessels owned by railroad companies. 




PART OF THE COMPLETED CANAL 



HIS MORNING TUB 

At the time of its passage this law created much 
discussion. The reason for it was widely misunder- 
stood. Its first effect was the canceling of several 
orders for ships placed by railroad companies with 
shipbuilders in anticipation of the Canal's opening, 
and the public naturally cried out against a measure 
which seemed to interpose an obstacle to the re- 
appearance of the American flag on the high seas. 
But the law was bred of bitter experience. In 
bygone days it was discovered that both time and 
money could be saved on shipments from California 
to New York or other Atlantic seaports by sending 
them to Panama by water, across the Isthmus by 
rail, and then by water from Colon to their destina- 



376 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




docks on the plea that all their cargo space was dis- 
posed of. It was — to the railroads who afterward 
gathered up the rejected freight and shipped it east 
over their own lines at prices to suit themselves. 

Taught wisdom by these tactics — against which 
they had unavailingly employed all the expedients 
of law and of cooperative competition — the ship- 
pers of California appealed to Congress to act 
wisely lest the Panama Canal as a waterway for 
all and a regulator of transcontinental freight rates 
be throttled by the railroads. They pointed out 
that the roads might in combination maintain one 
line of ships between New York and San Francisco 
which would make rates so low that no other line 
could meet them and live. Doubtless such a line 
would lose money, but the loss, divided among the 
conspiring roads, would be but a flea bite to each, 
and would be more than recouped by the higher 
rail rates they might charge. In response to this 



NATIVE GIRL, CHORRERA PRUVINCE 

tion. This route grew in favor until the trans- 
continental railroads intervened to check its further 
development. Getting control of the Pacific Mail 
line of steamers from San Francisco to Panama, 
they first put their rates so low as to drive all com- 
peting ships from the route. Of course they lost 
money, but the loss was apportioned among the 
companies forming the pool, and when the com- 
peting concerns had been ruined or driven out of 
business, the rates were put up again and the losses 
that had been incurred were speedily recouped. 
Once the complete monopoly on the Pacific had been 
secured, every effort was made to discourage ship- 
ments by that route. The ships passed Los Angeles, 
the greatest fruit port in the country, without a 
call, but touched at innumerable little mud villages 
in Central America so as to make the time of through 
shipments intolerable. They often sailed with half 
a cargo — refusing to take freight that lay at their 




NATIVE BOY, CHORRERA PROVINCE 



THE RAILROAD FIGHT ON THE CANAL 



377 



appeal Congress enacted the law denying railroads 
the right to maintain lines of water carriage on 
what would be normally competitive routes. The 
statute though planned primarily for the main- 
tenance of the highest usefulness of the Panama 
Canal affects other routes, notably 
Long Island Sound. It is denounced 
by the railroads and has doubtless 
checked to some extent American 
shipbuilding, but it is nevertheless 
the only apparent weapon against a 
very real and harmful device in the 
railroads' efforts to maintain high 
rates. 

The question of the tolls to be 
charged for passage through the 
Canal is one that has evoked a some- 
what acrimonious discussion, the end 
of which is not yet. About the 
amount of the toll there was little 
dispute. It was determined by tak- 
ing the cost of maintenance of the 
Canal, which is estimated at about $4,000,000 an- 
nually, and the interest on its cost, about $ro,ooo,- 
000 a year, and comparing the total with the 



for the first year at 10,500,000 tons, with an increase 
at the end of the first decade of operation to 17,- 
000,000, and at the end of the second decade to 
27,000,000 tons. The annual expenses of the 
Canal, including interest, approximates $14,000,- 




MAIN STREET, CHORRERA 















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PARK AT DAVID 

amount of tonnage which might reasonably be 
expected to pass through annually. Prof. Emory 
R. Johnson, the government expert upon whose 
figiires are based all estimates concerning canal 
revenues, fixed the probable tonnage of the Canal 



000, and Congress has accordingly fixed the tolls 
at $1.20 a ton for freight and $1.50 per passenger. 
It is anticipated that these figures will cause a 

deficit in the first two or 
three years of operation, but 
that the growth of commerce 
through the Canal will speed- 
ily make it up. 

In legislating upon the ques- 
tion of tolls Congress opened 
an international question 
which has been fiercely de- 
bated and which remains a 
subject of diplomatic negotia- 
tion between our State De- 
partment and the British 
Foreign Office. This was done 
by the section of the law 
\\'hich granted to American- 
built ships engaged in the 
coasting trade the right to 
use the Canal without the payment of any tolls 
whatsoever. At the time of its appearance in 
Congress this proposition attracted little attention 
and evoked no discussion. It seemed to be a 
perfectly obvious and entirely justifiable employ- 



.378 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



ment of the Canal for the encouragement of Ameri- 
■can shipping. The United States had bought the 
■territory through which the Canal extended and 
■was paying every dollar of the cost of the great work. 
What could be more natural than that it should 
•concede to American shipping owners, who had 
borne their share of the taxation which the cost 

■of the Canal necessitated, 

the right of free passage 
through it? 

The concession seemed 
the more obvious and 
■proper because the priv- 
ilege of free passage was 
limited to vessels in the 
■coastwise trade. Under 
■our navigation laws mar- 
itime trade between ports 
in the United States is 
-confined to ships built in 
American shipyards. This 
regulation is clearly in- 
tended to confer upon the 
United States a monop- 
■oly of the building of 
■coastwise ships, and the 
subsequent exemption of 
■coastwise ships from Pan- 
ama Canal tolls was a 
further benefaction to 
this monopoly. As a 
matter of fact, our coast- 
wise trade was at the 
.moment passing into 
monopolistic control, and 
the wisdom of making so 
^prodigious a gift to a 
:monopolistic combina- 
tion might have justly 
■been questioned. But 
the strictly business fea- 
tures of the Canal have 

always been decorated with more or less sentimental 
■declamation about reestablishing the American flag 
■on the high seas, and it was to contribute to the 
latter desirable end that the tolls were to be re- 
mitted. It seemed to occur to no one that the ships 
thus favored were either owned by railroad com- 




A PLACID BACK WATER IN CHIRIQUI 



panics and used largely to stifle competition or by 
a somewhat notorious organizer of trusts whose 
ambition was to control water transportation from 
Maine to the Mexico border, and who was checked 
in the attainment of his aim by a sentence to the 
Federal penitentiary. It is not only in war time 
that the flag is waved most enthusiastically by men 

who only want the boun- 
ty that goes with it. 

Nobody, however, at 
the time of the passage 
of the act regulating tolls 
thought it had any par- 
ticular international sig- 
nificance. Its signature 
by the President was 
taken as a matter of 
course and it was not un- 
til some time afterward 
that the Ambassador of 
Great Britain presented 
his country's claim that 
the exemption clause was 
in violation of the Hay- 
Pauncefote treaty. The 
section of that treaty 
which it is claimed is 
violated reads thus: 

"The Canal shall be 
free and open to the ves- 
sels of commerce and of 
war of all nations observ- 
ing these rules on terms 
of entire equality, so 
that there shall be no dis- 
crimination against any 
such nation, or its citi- 
zens or subjects, in re- 
spect of the conditions or 
changes of traffic". 

The outcry against the 
exemption clause soon 
became very vociferous. Peihaps the Canadian 
railroads or some of their officials may have been in- 
strumental in this, seeing a possible profit in 
running ships from Montreal or Quebec to 
Vancouver or Victoria, touching at various United 
States ports en route. Such a voyage would not 



THE CANAL AND THE FLAG 



379 



constitute a "coastwise passage" under our laws, 
and foreign vessels might engage in such traffic. 
But they saw that the exemption in tolls by which a 
United States vessel of 12,000 tons would escape 
canal tolls amounting to $15,000 would put them at 
a serious disadvantage. Hence they appealed to 
Great Britain and the protest followed. Whether 
affected by the vigorous colonial protest or not,_ 



sacrificed her coastwise register if she continued her 
voyage to Yokohama or Hong Kong. 

American public men and the American press 
are radically divided on the question. A majority, 
perhaps, are inclined to thrust it aside with a mere 
declaration of our power in the matter. "We built 
the Canal and paid for it", they say, "and our ships 
have the same rights in it that they have in the 




GATUN LAKE. FLOATING ISLANDS MASSED AGAINST TRESTLE 



the British government urges that the United 
States will very properly adjust its tolls to meet the 
needs of the Canal for revenue, and that if the 
coastwise shipping be exempted there will be a loss 
of some millions of dollars in revenue which will 
compel the imposition of higher tolls on other ship- 
ping. It is urged also on behalf of the protestants 
that the word "coastwise" is capable of various 
constructions and that a vessel plying between New 
York and Los Angeles might be held not to have 



Hudson River or the canal at the Soo. Besides the 
British cannot engage in our coasting trade anyway, 
and what we do to help our coastwise ships con- 
cerns no one but us". Which seems a pretty fair 
and reasonable statement of the case until the op- 
ponents of the exemption clause put in their re- 
joinder. "Read the treaty", they say. "It is per- 
fectly clear in its agreement that the United States 
should not do this thing it now proposes to do. Trea- 
ties are, by the Constitution, the supreme law of the 



38o 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



land. To violate one is to violate our national 
honor. It would be disgraceful to let the word go 
out to all the world that the United States entered 
into sacred obligations by treaty and repudiated 
them the moment their fulfilment proved galling. 
The protected shipyards, the already subsidized 
coastwise steamship companies, are asking for more 
gratuities at the cost of our national honor. What 
is the use of reestablishing on the high seas a flag 
which all peoples may point out as the emblem of 
a dishonorable state"? 

So rests the argument. The advocates of the 
remission of tolls to the coastwise ships of the 
United States have the best of the position, since 
their contention is already enacted into law, but 
the opposing forces are vigorously urging the repeal 
of the law. Congress will of course be the final 
arbiter, and as the Canal cannot be opened to com- 
merce before 191 5 there is ample time for delibera- 
tion and just judgment. A phase of the problem 



which I do not recall having seen discussed arises 
out of the literal acceptance of the language of the 
treaty as bearing upon the use of the Canal in war 
time. It declares that the Canal "shall be free and 
open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all 
nations ... on terms of entire equality", and 
while it goes on to prescribe the rules to be followed 
in war time it nowhere declares the right of the 
United States to debar to the warships of a hostile 
nation the privilege of passing through the Canal. 
Under the strictest construction of the language 
of the treaty the refusal of the United States to 
permit a German or a Japanese fleet to pass through, 
even though that nation was at war with us, would 
be a violation of the treaty which would justify 
English interference to enforce the opening of the 
Canal — which of course would be war. No such 
contingency could possibly arise, nor any such con- 
struction be put upon the language of the treaty 
by any reasonable and responsible party. Yet it 




GUIDE WALL AT MIRAFLORES 



This picture shows method ot lock construction. The space within these two walls will be filled with dirt and cement. The ground 
on either side will be inundated, forming a small lake through which the Canal passes. 



THE FIRST IMMEDIATE ADVANTAGE OF THE CANAL 



381 



is scarcely a more forced construction than the one 
appHed in order to make it appear that we may not 
free our own ships in purely domestic trade from 
canal tolls. 

The fundamental principle controlling the amount 
of the tolls is to fix them at such a figure as to 
minimize the 
competition 
of Suez. Com- 
merce pro- 
ceeds by the 
cheapest 
route. Some 
slight advan- 
tage may ac- 
crue to the 
Panama route 
if the govem- 
m e n t can 

make such contracts with American mines as to be 
able to furnish coal at the Isthmus at a price mate- 
rially less than is charged at Suez. The estimates, 
supplied by Prof. Johnson, of probable commerce 
have been based on a price for coal at Cristobal or 
Colon of $5 a ton and at Balboa of $5.50 a ton. At 
the time the prices for coal at Port Said on the Suez 




Canal were from $6.20 to $6.32 a ton. This, plus 
cheaper tolls, will give Panama a great advantage 
over Suez. 

The first immediate and direct profit accruing to 
the people of the United States from the Canal will 
come from the quick, short and cheap communica- 
tion it will af- 
ford between 
the eastern 
and western 
coasts of the 
UnitedStates. 
People who 
think of pas- 
senger sched- 
ules when 
^ they speak of 



POLING OVER THE SHALLOWS 



communica- 
tion between 
distant cities will doubtless be surprised to learn 
that on freight an average of two weeks will be 
saved by the Canal route between New York and 
San Francisco. The saving in money, even should 
the railroads materially reduce their present trans- 
continental rates, will be even more striking. 
Even now for many classes of freights there is a 




Photo by American Press Association 



THE SPILLWAY ALMOST COMPLETE. 
The scaffolding will be removed and all towers built to height of those on left 



382 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




SAN BXAS LUGGER IN PORT 

profit in shipping by way of the Straits of Magellan — 
a distance of 13,135 miles. By Panama the dis- 
tance between New York and San Francisco is but 
5262 miles, a saving of 7873 miles or about the 
distance across the Atlantic and back. From New 
Orleans to San Francisco will be but 4683 miles. 
Today there is little or no water communication 
between the two cities and their tributary territory. 



At least one month's steaming will be saved by 12- 
knot vessels going through the Panama Canal over 
those making the voyage by way of the Straits of 
Magellan. A general idea of the saving in distance 
between points likely to be affected by the Canal is 
given by the table prepared by Hon. John Barrett, 
Director General of the Pan-American Union and 
published on page 384. 

The Pacific coasts both of the United States and 
of South and Central America will be quickened 
into new life when the stream of commerce begins 
to flow through the new channel at Panama. It 
may be wise to lay emphasis at this point upon the 
fact that so far as industrial and commercial life 
on our own Pacific coast is concerned it needs little 
quickening, as the march to civic greatness of those 
communities has been unparalleled. But even that 
magnificent advance has been impeded and harassed 
by the difficulty of communication with the markets 
of the Atlantic coast. The struggles of the Pacific 
coast planters and lumbermen to break the bondage 
imposed upon them by the railroads have been fairly 
frantic, and their uniform failure pathetic. Per- 
haps the railroad managers have demanded no 




Photo by BTOxcn Bros. 



THE BEGINNING OF A SLIDE 
The great crack has opened in the side of a road; note house in the distance about to go 



THE MUCH-MOOTED QUESTION OF TOLLS 



383- 



more than a rightful care for the interests of their 
stockholders warranted. This is no place to argue 
the railroad rate question. But from the shipper's 
point of view the demands have been so intolerable 
that every expedient for resisting them has been 
tried and failed. Even now there is profit to a 
corporation — and to the shippers that patronize it — 
in carrying goods from San Francisco to Hawaii, 
thence to Tehuantepec and across that Isthmus to 
the Gulf and thence again to New York in com- 
petition with the direct railroad lines. If freight 
can be thus handled profitably, with two changes 
from ship to car and vice versa, it is easy to see how 
vastly beneath the charges of the railroads will be 
the all-water route between New York and San 
Francisco. It is little exaggeration to say that for 
commercial purposes all the Pacific seaboard will 
be brought as near New York and European mar- 
kets as Chicago is today. The forward impetus 
given by this to the commercial interests of the 
Pacific baffles computation. 

But it is Latin America that has reason to look 
forward with 'the utmost avidity to the results that 
will follow the opening of the Canal. For the people 
of that little developed and still mysteri- 
ous coast line reaching from the United 
States-Mexico boundary, as far south 
at least as Valparaiso, 
the United States has 
prepared a gift of in- 





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Photo by Brown Bros. 



MAKING THE DIRT FLY ' 



THE HAPPY CHILDREN OF THE ZONE 

calculable richness. Our share in the benefit will 
come in increased trade, if our merchants seize upon 
the opportunity offered. 

From Liverpool to Valparaiso today is 8747 miles- 
and from New York 8380. But when the ships go- 
through the Canal the English vessels will save- 
little. For them the run will be reduced to 7207 
miles, while from New York_the distance will be 
cut to 4633. With such a handicap in their favor 
New York shippers should control the commerce of 
Pacific South America north of Valparaiso. Guaya- 
quil, in Ecuador, will be but 2232 miles from New 

Orleans; it has been 
10,631. Callao, with 
all Peru at its back,^ 
will be 3363 miles from 
New York, 2784 from 
New Orleans. In ev- 
ery instance the saving: 
of distance by the Pan- 
ama route is more to 
the advantage of the 
United States than of 
Great Britain. Today 
the lion's share of the 
commerce of the South 
American countries 
goes to England or to 
Germany. 

North of the Canal 



384 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



DISTANCE SAVED BY THE PANAMA CUTOFF 



COMPARATIVE DISTANCES (IN NAUTICAL MILES) IN THE WORLD'S SEA TRAFFIC 

AND DIFFERENCE IN DISTANCES VIA PANAMA CANAL 

AND OTHER PRINCIPAL ROUTES 

From 



To 


Via 


New 
York 


New 
Orleans 


Liverpool 


Hamburg 


Suez 


Panama 


Seattle 


f Magellan 

\ Panama. . 


i3>9S3 
6,oSo 
7,873 


14,369 
5,501 
8,868 


14,320 

8,654 
5,666 


14,701 

9,173 
5,528 


15,397 
10,447 

4,950 






4,063 


Distance 


saved 








San Francisco 


f Magellan 

\ Panama 


13,13s 
5,262 
7,873 


13,551 
4,683 
8,868 


13,502 
7,836 
5,666 


13,883 

8,355 
5,528 


14,579 
9,629 
4,950 


3,245 


Distance 


saved 








Honolulu . 


f Magellan 

\ Panama 


i3,3i2 
6,702 
6,610 


13,728 
6,123 
7,605 


13,679 
9,276 
4,403 


14,060 

9,795 
4,265 


14,756 

11,069 

3,687 






4,685 


Distance 


saved . . . 








Guayaquil 


f Magellan 

\ Panama. 


10,215 
2,810 
7,405 


10,631 
2,231 
8,400 


10,582 

5,384 
5,198 


10,963 

5,903 
5,060 


11,659 
9,192 

2,467 






793 


Distance 


saved 








Callao 


f Magellan 

\ Panama 


9>6i3 
3,363 
6,250 


10,029 
2,784 
7,245 


9,980 

5,937 
4,043 


10,361 

6,456 
3,905 


11,057 
7,730 
3,327 






1,346 


Distance 


saved 








Valparaiso 


f Magellan 

\ Panama 


8,380 
4,633 
3,747 


8,796 

4,054 
4,742 


8,747 
7,207 
1,540 


9,128 
7,726 
1,402 


9,824 

9,000 

824 








Distance 


saved 






f Magellan 

< Suez 


11,344 


11,760 




13,353 


9,694 




Wellington 


12,989 

11,425 
1,564 






Panama. . . 


8,857 
2,493 


8,272 
3,488 


11,944 
1,409 


9,205 
489 


6,834 


Distance 


saved 










f Cape Good Hope 
I Suez 


13,162 


14,09s 




11,84s 


8,186 




Melbourne 


11,654 
12,966 
*1,312 




Distance 


[ Panama 

saved 


10,392 
2,770 


9,813 
4,282 


13,452 
*1,607 


10,713 
*2,527 


8,342 


Manila 


fSuez 

\ Panama 

saved 


11,589 

11,548 

41 


12,943 

10,969 

1,974 


9,701 
14,122 
*4,421 


9,892 
14,608 
*4,716 


6,233 
11,869 
*5,636 




Distance 


9,370 


Hongkong 


rSuez 

\ Panama 

saved 


11,673 

11,691 

18 


13,031 

11,112 

1,919 


9,785 
13,957 
*4,172 


9,976 

14,443 
*4,467 


6,317 
11,704 
*5,387 




Distance 


9,173 


Yokohama 

Distance 


f Suez 

\ Panama 

saved 


13,566 
9,79s 
3,768 


14,924 
9,219 
5,705 


11,678 

12,372 

*694 


11,869 
13,858 
*1,989 


8,210 
11,119 
*2,909 


7,660 


Panama 




2,017 


1,438 


4,591 


S,iio 


6,387 











See also map on page 385 
* Distance saved in these cases is via Suez or Cape of Good Hope. 



OUR TRADE WITH PACIFIC LATIN AMERICA 



38c 



are the Central American countries of Costa Rica, 
Nicaragua, Honduras, Salvador, Guatemala and 
Mexico. On their Gulf coasts harbors are infrequent 
and poor, but on the Pacific plentiful. Their terri- 
tory is as yet little developed, but with few manu- 
facturers of their own they offer a still undeveloped 
market for ours. In all, the twelve Latin-American 
countries bordering on the Pacific have an area of 



to which the Canal will give the readiest access. 
Here other nations will profit equally with ours 
unless our merchants show a greater . pnergy in the 
pursuit of foreign trade than .they.'' have of late 
years. Time was that the pld,. shipping merchants 
of Boston, Philadelphia and New York asked odds 
of no man nor of any nation, but had their, own 
ships plying in the waters of all the world, with 











%i -'-^..-^ " /f^K ^ '-'^"P""'./ - ^-ii U R O P E 



-^^. 



'^ V UNITED, .rNew York 
San Francisco -f, STATES j \ \ 



^'*>^ STATES 









Melbourue"^^ti. 






■V /■ o^ o w U T H 7-,/ o 
'". ■■ /' \ \\A!MERig/Ji ^ 






,,'si/auof THE PANAMA CUT 



OFF 



THIS MAP SHOULD BE STUDIED IN CONNECTION WITH THE TABLE OF COMPARATIVE DISTANCES ON PAGE 3S4 



over 2,500,000 square miles, or about that of the 
United States exclusive of Alaska and its insular 
possessions. They have a population of 37,000,000 
and their foreign trade is estimated at $740,000,000. 
In this trade the United States is at the present 
time a sharer to the extent of $277,000,000 or about 
37 per cent. With the Canal in operation it is 
believed that the total commerce will be doubled 
and the share of the United States raised to 50 
per cent. 

However, it is the great Australasian and Asiatic 
markets, now scarcel;y touched about the outskirts, 



captains who were at once navigators and traders — 
equally alert to avoid a typhoon and to secure a 
profitable cargo or charter. But that sort of foreign 
trade is now vanished with the adventurous spirits 
who pursued it. L^nless conditions governing the 
American merchant marine materiallj* change within 
the next two years — of which there seems today 
no likelihood — it will be England and Germany with 
their existing lines of ships that will chiefly benefit 
by the United States $400,000,000 gift to the 
commerce of the world. 

Curiously enough New York, or for that matter 



386 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Photo bjj Brown Bros. 



AN ERUPTION OF THE CANAL BED 



The pressure of the adjoining hills has forced up the soil at its weakest point, namely the bed of ths Canal, to a height of i8 feet, 

as shown by the dotted line 



any North Atlantic seaport of the United States, 
is in a sort a way station for ships from Europe 
to North Asiatic ports. In navigation the straight 
course is not always the shortest course, for the 
very simple reason that the equator is the longest 
way around the world. On account of the curvature 
of the earth's surface a vessel from Liverpool to 
Hamburg to the Panama Canal by following the 
great circle route can make New York a stopping- 
place by adding only one day's steaming to the 
voyage. On the other hand a vessel en route from 
Panama to Yokohama can touch at San Diego and 
San Francisco with only two days' extra steaming. 
These facts make for the advantage of the shipper 
by adding to the vigor of competition for cargoes, 
but they add to the fierceness of the rivalry which 
the American ship owner will have to meet and 
for which the kindly government prepares him by 
forcing him to buy his ships in the costliest market 



and operate them in accordance with a hampering 
and extravagant system of navigation laws. 

The ease however with which English or German 
ships en route to the Far East may touch at New 
York, Boston or Philadelphia will doubtless divert 
to Panama some of the traffic that would find a 
shorter through route via Suez. For example, from 
Liverpool to Melbourne is 13 12 miles less via Suez 
than by way of Panama, while to Hongkong it 
is 694 miles less. Yet it is quite conceivable that 
the advantage of taking New York or other United 
States Atlantic ports on the way may secure some 
of this traffic for Panama. 

The really striking saving in time and distance 
is shown by a comparison of the present distances 
between our Atlantic coast towns and Australasia 
and the Orient. Prof. Johnson has put this in two 
compact tables, which I quote from The Scientific 
American: 



TIME SAVED BY PANAMA CANAL ROUTE 



387 



TABLE I.— DISTANCES AND TIME SAVED VIA THE PANAMA CANAL AS CONTRASTED WITH ROUTES 

VIA THE SUEZ CANAL, THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, AND THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN 

BETWEEN THE ATLANTIC GULF SEABOARD OF THE UNITED 

STATES AND AUSTRALASIA 





From New York 


From New Orleans 




To 


Dis- 
tance 
saved 


Days saved for vessels of 


Dis- 


Days saved for vessels of 


Remarks 


9 


10 


12 


14 


16 


tance 
saved 


9 


10 


12 


14 


16 








knots 


knots 


knots 


knots 


knots 




knots 


knots 


knots 


knots 1 knots 






Miles 












Miles 














Adelaide... 


1,746 


7.5 


6.7 


5.6 


4.6 


4.0 


3,258 


14.6 


13.1 


10.8 


9.2 


8.0 


Difference between routes 
via Panama, Tahiti, Syd- 
ney, and Melbourne, and 
via St. Vincent and Cape 
of Good Hope. 


Melbourne. 


2,770 


12.3 


11.0 


9.1 


7.7 


6.7 


4,282 


19.3 


17.3 


14.3 


12.2 


10.7 


Difference between routes 
via Panama, Tahiti, and 
Sydney and via St. Vin- 
cent, Cape of Good Hope, 
and Adelaide. 

Difference between routes 


Sydney .... 


3,932 


17.7 


15.8 


13.1 


11.2 


9.7 


5,444 


24.6 


22.2 


18.4 


15.7 


13.7 




























via Panama and Tahiti, 




























and via St. Vincent, Cape 




























of Good Hope, Adelaice, 




























and Melbourne. 


Wellington 


2,493 


11.0 


9.9 


8.1 


6.9 


6.0 


3,488 


15.6 


14.0 


11.6 


9.9 


8.6 


Difference between routes 
via Panama and Tahiti 
and via Straits of Magel- 
lan. 



TABLE II.— DISTANCES AND DAYS SAVED BY THE PANAMA OR THE SUEZ CANAL BETWEEN THE 

ATLANTIC GULF SEABOARD OF THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN, CHINA, 

THE PHILIPPINES, AND SINGAPORE 





Via 


From New York 


From New Orleans 




To 


Dis- 
tance 
saved 


Days saved for vessels of 


Dis- 
tance 
saved 


Days saved for vessels of 


Remarks 


9 

knots 


10 

knots 


12 

knots 


14 

knots 


16 

knots 


9 

knots 


10 

knots 


12 
knots 


14 

knots 


16 

knots 




Yoko- 
hama . . 


/ Panama. 
\Suez.... 


Miles 
3,768 


16.9 


15.2 


12.6 


10.7 


9.3 


Miles 
5,705 


25.9 


23.3 


19.3 


16.5 


14.4 


Via San Francisco. 

Via Colombo, Sin- 
gapore, Hongkong 
and Shanghai. 

Via San Francisco 
and Yokohama. 

Via Colombo, Sin- 
gapore and Hong- 
kong. 

Via San Francisco, 
Yokohama and 
Shanghai. 

Via Colombo and 
Singapore. 

Via San Francisco 
and Yokohama. 

Via Colombo and 
Singapore. 

Via San Francisco 
and Yokohama. 

Via Colombo. 


Shanghai 


f Panama . 
1 Suez 


1,876 


8.1 


7.3 


6.0 


5.1 


4.4 


3,813 


17.1 


15.4 


12.7 


10.8 


9.4 




f Panama . 














1,919 


8.4 


7.5 


6.2 


5.2 


4.5 


Hong- 
kong . . . 


< 

[ Suez .... 

f Panama. 

1 Suez 


18 
41 
























1,978 


8.6 


7.7 


6.4 


5.4 


4.7 


Manila. . 












Singa- 
pore . . . 


[ Panama. 


























[ Suez .... 


2,484 


11.0 


9.8 


8.4 


6.9 


5.9 


547 


2.0 


1.7 


1.4 


1.1 


0.9 



388, 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



So far as Asiatic traffic is concerned, there is 
almost sure to be some overlapping of routes. 
Conditions other than those of time and space will 
occasionally control shipmasters in the choice of a 
route. But so far as the trade of our Atlantic ports 
with Hongkong, the Philippines and points north 
and east thereof is concerned it will all go through 
Panama. So, too, with the vessels from English, 
French or German ports. If the contemplated 
economies offered by the price of coal and fuel 
oil at Balboa are effected, the inducements of 
this route will divert from Suez all European 
shipping bound for Asiatic ports north of 
India. A careful study of the Suez Canal shows 
that the trade of the United States with all foreign 
countries made up 33 per cent of the total traffic, 
and the commerce of Europe with the west coast 
of South Am^erica comprised 38 per cent. Col. 
Johnson compiled for the benefit of the Commission 
a table which showed the vessels which might 
advantageously have used the Canal in 1909 and 



1910, and accompanied it with another giving 
his estimate of the amount of shipping that 
actually will use the Canal in 191 5 and there- 
after. As the expression of official opinion based 
upon the most careful research, these tables are here 
republished. 

CLASSIFICATION OF ESTIMATED NET TONNAGE OF 

SHIPPING USING THE PANAMA CANAL 

IN 1915, 1920 AND 1925 





Average 
per annum 
during 1915 

and 1916 


1920 


1925 


Coast-to-coast American 
shiDoins" 


1,000,000 
720,000 

8,780,000 


1,414,000 
910,000 

11,020,000 


2,000,000 


American shipping carrying 
foreign commerce of the 
United States 


1,500,000 


Foreign shipping carrying 
commerce of the United 
States and foreign coun- 
tries 


13,850,000 






Total .... 


10,500,000 


13,344,000 


17,000,000 








CULEBRA CUT ON A HAZY DAY 



THE POSSIBLE COMMERCE OF THE CANAL 



389 



NET TONNAGE OF VESSELS THAT MIGHT HAVE AD- 
VANTAGEOUSLY USED A PANAMA CANAL 
IN 1909-10. 





Total 
Entrances 


Total 
Clearances 


Total 
Entrances 

and 
Clearances 


Europe with: 

Western South America 

Western Central America and 


1,553,887 

80,788 

419,865 

(1) 
618,704 

309,909 
117,147 

181,713 
600,000 

1.58,558 


1,. 594,5 13 
118,714 
269,853 

(1) 
555,881 

166,686 
55,508 

181,713 
900,000 
259,932 


3,148,400 
199,502 


Pacific United States, British 

Columbia, and Hawaii .... 

Pacific United States via Suez 


689,718 
(1) 158,000 


Oriental countries east of 
Singapore and Oceania. . . 
Eastern United States coast 
with: 

Western South America, Pa- 
cific Mexico, and Hawaii . . 

Pacific Coast of United States 


1,174,585 

467,595 
172,655 


Pacific Coast of United States 
and Hawaii (via American- 
Hawaiian S.S. Co.) 

Oriental countries east of 
Singapore and Oceania. . . 
Pacific traffic: 

Pacific Coast 

Atlantic Coast 


363,426 

1,500,000 

418,490 


Eastern Canada with Alaska, 
Chile and Australia 


13,410 


22,248 


35,658 


Total 


4,044,981 


4,125,048 


8,328,029 



Note. — (1) Reported by Suez Canal Company; hence the 
total is not separable into entrances and clearances at American 
ports. 



After all, however, the most patient investigation 
of the past and the most careful and scientific 
calculations of the probabilities of the future may- 
produce a wholly inaccurate result. The real effect 
of the Canal on the world's commerce may be some- 
thing wholly different from what the experts expect. 
But we may proceed upon the well-established fact 
that no new route of swifter and cheaper transporta- 
tion ever failed to create a great business, and to 
develop thriving communities along its route. This 
fact finds illustration in the building up of the suburbs 
and back country by the development of trolley lines, 
and, on a larger scale, the prodigious growth of our 
Pacific coast after the transcontinental railroads had 
fought their way to every corner of that empire still 
in the making. Much is uncertain about what the 
Panama Canal will do for the expansion of our trade 
and influence, but the one thing that is certain is 
that no sane man is likely to put the figures of in- 
crease and extension too high. 

More and more the exports of the United States 
are taking the form of manufactured goods. The 
old times when we were the granary of the world 
are passing away and the moment is not far distant 
when we shall produce barely enough for our rapidly 
increasing population. British Columbia is taking 




Dwto by Brown Bros. 



BIRD S-EYE VIEW OF MIRAFLORES LOCK 
At the upper end of the lock the guide wall extends into Miraflores lake; the lower end opens into the tide-water Canal. 



390 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



up the task of feeding the world where we are 
dropping it. On the other hand, our manufacturing 
industry is progressing with giant strides 
and, while a few years ago our manu 
facturers were content with their 
rigidly protected home mar 
ket, they are now reaching 
out for the markets of 
foreign lands. Figures just 
issued show that in lo . 
years our exports of man- 
ufactured goods have in- 
creased 70 per cent. The 
possibilities of the Asiatic 
market, which the Canal 
brings so much more 
closely to our doors, are 
almost incalculable. For cot- 
ton goods alone China and 
India will afford a market vastly 
exceeding any which is now open to 
our cotton mills, and if, as many hold, 
the Chinese shall themselves take up 
the manufacture of the fleecy staple they will have 
to turn to New England and Pennsylvania for their 




HANDLING BROKEN ROCK 



machinery and to our cotton belt of states for the 
material. The ships from Charleston, Savannah, 
New Orleans and Galveston, which so long 
steamed eastward with their cargoes 
of cotton, will in a few years turn 
their prows toward the setting 
sun. Indeed these southern 
ports should be among 
the first to feel the stimu- 
lating effect of the new 
markets. Southern to- 
bacco, lumber, iron and 
coal will find a new out- 
let, and freight which has 
been going to Atlantic 
ports will go to the Gulf 
— the front door to the 
Canal. 

How swiftly and efficiently 
American manufacturers and job- 
bers will seize upon the new condi- 
tions and avail themselves of this 
opening of new fields is yet to be 
determined. The enemies of a protective tariff are 
not the only ones who hold that it has had the 




Pho!o bu American Press Association 



LOCK CONSTRUCTION SHOWING CONDUITS 



SOME PHASES OF OUR FOREIGN TRADE 



591 



result of dulling the keen spirit of adventurous 
enterprise for which our people were once noted. 
The absolute possession of a home market ever 
growing in size and into which no foreigner could 
enter with any hope of successful competition has 
naturally engaged at home the attention of our 
captains of industry. Bold and dashing spirits of 
the sort that one hundred years ago were covering 



president or the head of a great manufacturing 
industry. 

Whether the earlier spirit of world conquest will 
again spring up in the American mind so long con- 
tent with the profits of its own national preserves 
is yet to be demonstrated. To what extent it has 
vanished any thoughtful traveler in foreign lands 
observes with a sigh. One sees evidences of its 




TRAVELING CRANE HANDLING CONCRETE IN LOCK-BUILDING 
These cranes are the striking feature of the Canal landscape, handling thousands of tons of concrete daily 



the seas with Baltimore clippers and the output of 
the New England shipyards turned their attention 
half a century ago to the building of railroads and 
the development of our western frontier. When 
the middle-aged men of today were boys, the heroes 
of their story books ran away to sea and after 
incredible adventures came home in command of 
clipper ships trading to China. Today the same 
class of fiction starts the aspiring boy in as a brake- 
man or a mill hand and he emerges as a railroad 



weakness at every foreign international exhibition, 
for the American section is generally the least im- 
pressive there. The opinion of our manufacturers 
is often that to show their products abroad is folly 
because foreign manufacturers will imitate them 
with cheaper materials and labor. In most foreign 
markets, in the cities of Europe, South America 
and the Orient the chief American products you 
see displayed are those manufactured by one of 
those combinations of capital we call a trust, and 



392 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



they are usually sold abroad at lower prices than 
at home. Typewriters, adding machines, sewing 
machines, shoes and the divers products of the 
protean Standard Oil Company seem to be the most 
vigorous representatives of American industrial 
activity abroad. Nevertheless the recent statistics 
show that our experts are on the up-grade, and 
evidences of growing interest in our export trade 
multiply daily. 

That the Canal of itself will not make amends for 
indifference or lethargy on the part of our manu- 
facturers goes without saying. The nation may 
supply them with the waterway, but it cannot 
compel them to use it, or even teach them how. 
Every American traveler in South America has 
groaned over the reports that come from every side 
concerning the fatuity with which our manufacturers 
permit themselves to' be distanced in the race , for 
the trade of those republics. "Our consular reports 
are filled with ' suggestions from consuls, but the 
v^ipus associations of' exporters are so busy passing 



platitudinous resolutions 
about the need of taking 
the consular service out of 
politics that they have no 
time to heed the really 
valuable suggestions of- 
fered. Our methods of 
packing goods, and our 
systems of credits, are re- 
pugnant to the South 
American needs and cus- 
toms and the fact has been 
set forth in detail in innu- 
merable consular reports 
without any response on 
the part of our exporters. 
The American attitude 
is ' ' what is good enough at 
home is good enough 
abroad" — which is patri- 
otic but not a good rule 
on which 





TIVOLI HOTEL FROM HOSPITAL GROUNDS 



MESTIZO GIRL OF CHORRERA 

to attempt 

building up foreign trade. Inci- 
dentally sometimes what is good 
enough for a home market is often 
too good for a Latin-American one. 
The English and the Germans recog- 
nize this and govern themselves ac- 
cordingly. 

It is a far cry from digging a canal 
to the system of educating young 
men to represent a firm in foreign 
lands. Yet one finds in visiting 
South America, or for that matter 
Oriental cities, that a great deal of 
the rapid expansion of German trade 
is due to the systematic education of 
boys for business in foreign lands. 
The weakest part of the educational 
system of the United States is its 
indifference to foreign tongues, an 
indifference possibly quite natural be- 
cause but few Americans have really 
any need for any language except 
their own. But the German represen- 
tatives sent to South America are at 
home in the Spanish tongue, and care- 



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i: 



THE NEED OF OUR OWN SHIPS AND BANKS 



393 



fully schoolfed in the commercial 
needs and customs of the Latin- 
American countries before they 
reach them. They are backed, 
too, by a strong semi-official or- 
ganization in their own country. 
They have in most of the princi- 
pal South American towns Ger- 
man banks quite as interested as 
the salesmen themselves in the 
extension of German trade. It 
is reported that whenever paper 
involved in an American trans- 
action with a South American 
buyer passes through a German 
bank in South America a report 
of the transaction is sent to some 
central German agency which 
tries to divert the next business 
of the same sort into German 
hands. I have no personal 
knowledge of such transactions, 
but the story is current in South 
America and it is quite in accord 
with the German's infinite capacity for taking pains 
with little things. 

Foreign ships, no less than foreign banks and the 
excellence of foreign commercial schools, are and 
will continue to be 
a factor in the 
building up of 
foreign trade via 
the Canal. Just as 
the German banks 
report to their 
home commercial 
organizations the 
transactions of 
other countries in 
lands whose trade 
is sought, so foreign 
ships naturally 
work for the ad- 
vantage of the 
country whose flag 
they fly. Surpris- 
ing as it may seem 
to many, and dis- 




HOW CORN IS GROUND 



'% . :'% fgl. 



--'..ait-. - . ..i ^j^.^,.. ■„■■ -V.,. "«. 



THEY USED TO DO THIS IN NEW ENGLAND 



appointing as it must be to all, 
it is the unfortunate fact that 
within a year of the time set for 
opening the Panama Canal to 
commerce there is not the slight- 
est evidence that that great 
work is going to have any influ- 
ence whatsoever toward the cre- 
ation of a United States fleet in 
foreign trade. England, Ger- 
many, Italy and Japan, are all 
establishing new lines, the last 
three with the aid of heavy sub- 
sidies. But in April, 1913, a 
recognized authority on the 
American merchant marine pub- 
lished this statement: "So far 
as international commerce via 
Panama is concerned not one 
new keel is being laid in the 
United States and not one new 
ship has even been projected. 
The Panama Canal act of last 
August reversed our former pol- 
icy and granted free American registry to foreign- 
built ships for international commerce through the 
Panama Canal or elsewhere. But this 'free-ship' 
policy has utterly failed. Not one foreign ship has 

hoisted the Ameri- 
can flag, not one 
request for the flag' 
has reached the 
Bureau of Naviga- 
tion". 

The reason for 
this is the archaic 
condition of our 
navigation laws. 
The first cost of a 
ship, even though 
somewhat greater 
when built in 
American yards, 
becomes a negligi- 
ble factor in com- 
parison with a law 
which makes every 
expense incurred in 




394 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



operating it 10 to 20 per cent higher than Hke 
charges on foreign vessels. James J. Hill, the great 
railroad builder, who planned a line of steamships 
to the Orient and built the two greatest ships that 
ever came from an American yard, said once to 
the writer, "I can build ships in the United States 
as advantageously as on the Clyde and operate 



has been to deprive the sailor of the ships necessary 
to earn his livelihood. 

However, coastwise shipping will be greatly 
stimulated by the Canal. In the midst of the 
lamentation about the disappearance of the American 
flag from the high seas it is gratifying to reflect that 
the merchant marine of the United States is really 




Photo bu Brown Btos. 



PILE-DRIVER AND DREDGE AT BALBOA DOCK 



them without a subsidy. But neither I nor any 
other man can maintain a line of American ships 
at a profit while the navigation laws put us at a 
disadvantage in competition with those of every 
other nation". Those mainly responsible for the 
enactment and maintenance of the navigation laws 
declare them to be essential to secure proper wages 
and treatment of the American sailor, but the effect 



the second in the world, though our share in inter- 
national shipping is almost negligible. That we 
rank second as a whole is due to the phenomenal 
development of our shipping on the great lakes 
where with a season barely eight months long a 
shipping business is done that dwarfs the Mediter- 
ranean or the German Ocean into insignificance. 
This has built up a great shipbuilding business on 



WHAT OUR MERCHANT MARINE IS 



395 



the lakes, and steel ships are even now being built 
on the Detroit River to engage in Panama trade. 
There are not wanting those who hold that if the 
money which has been spent at Panama for the good 
of the whole world, had been expended in making a 
thirty-foot ship canal from Lake Erie to tide-water 
on the Hudson, the benefit to the people of the 



Gulf and from the Lakes to the Atlantic. After 
Panama the nation is unlikely to be daunted by any 
canal-digging project. Having improved the ocean 
highway, the people will demand easier access to it. 
Already there is discussion of whether the railroads 
will help or hamstring the Canal. Cargoes for the ships 
have to be gathered in the interior. When delivered 




Photo by Brown Bros. 



GIANT CEMENT CARRIERS AT WORK 



Placed in pairs on eitlier side of a piece of work requiring concrete, these frames support cables in which swing cars carrying concrete and 

controlled by a workman in the elevated house shown 



United States, and to American shipping would 
have been vastly greater. 

Indeed one of the pathetic things in the history of 
commerce is the persistence with which enterprising 
Chicagoans, and other mid-westerners, have tried to 
establish all-water routes to the European markets. 
All such endeavors have failed, costing their pro- 
jectors heavily. It will aid, however, if the success 
of the Panama Canal shall not reanimate the effort 
to secure deep-water channels from the Lakes to the 



at the seaport of their destination they have to be 
distributed to interior markets. It is in the power 
of the railroads to make such charges for this service as 
would seriously impede the economic use of the Canal. 
Among the great canals of the world that at 
Panama ranks easily first in point of cost, though in 
length it is outdone by many, and its place as a 
carrier of traffic is yet to be determined. There are 
now in operation nine artificial waterways which 
may properly be called ship canals, namely: 



396 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



I. — The Suez Canal, begun in 1859 and completed 
in 1869. 

2. — The Cronstadt and St. Petersburg Canal, 
begun in 1877 and completed in 1890. 

3. — The Corinth Canal, begun in 1884 and com- 
pleted in 1893. 

4. — The Manchester Ship Canal, completed in 
1893. 

5. — The Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, connecting the 
Baltic and North Seas, completed in 1895. 

6. — The Elbe and Trave Canal, connecting the 
North Sea and Baltic, opened in 1900. 

7. — The Welland Canal, connecting Lake Erie 
with Lake Ontario. 

8 and 9. — The two canals, United States and 
Canadian, respectively, connecting Lake Superior 
with Lake Huron 



The Suez Canal naturally suggests itself for com- 
parison, though it falls far short in volume of traffic 
of either of the two canals at Sault Ste. Marie, 
between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. It is 
ninety miles long, or just about twice the length of 
the Panama, and about two-thirds of its length is 
dredged through shallow lakes. It is 31 feet deep 
as against Panama's 45, with a surface width of 420 
feet, while the Panama Canal is from 300 to 1000 
feet. The Suez Canal cost slightly under $100,000,- 
000 and pays dividends at the rate of 12 per cent. 
Lord Beaconsfield, who bought control of it for 
England in face of fierce opposition and was savagely 
denounced for wild-cat financiering, secured for the 
Empire not merely its strongest bond, but a highly 
profitable investment as well. The tolls now 
charged are about $2 a ton according to the United 
States net measurement. 




TRACKS ASCENDING FROM LOWER TO UPPER LOCK 

Doors giving access to service tunnels are shown at either side of the central ascent 



THE GRAVE QUESTION OF QUARANTINE 



397 



Of the other canals enumerated some, Uke the 
Manchester and the Elbe and Trave Canals, are of 
purely local importance, while others, like the Kaiser 
Wilhelm (better known as the Kiel) Canal, are mainly 
for naval and military purposes. In volume of 
traffic the first of all canals in the world is the 
American canal at the "Soo", with the Canadian 
canal paralleling it a fair second. The volume of 
traffic passing through these waterways during the 
eight or nine 
months they 
are free from 
ice is incredi- 
ble. In 191 1 it 
approximat- 
ed 40,000,000 
tons and ex- 
ceeded in vol- 
ume Suez and 
all the other 
ship canals 
heretofore 
enumerated 
together. To 
the facilities 
for water car- 
riage afforded 
by this and 
the neighbor- 
ing Canadian 
canal is due 
much of the 
rapid growth 
and develop- 
ment of the country about the western end of Lake 
Superior. What countries will profit in the same 
way by the work at Panama? The Pacific coast, 
both of North and South America. Perhaps South 
America even more than our own land, for its 
present state admits of such development. 

One problem opened by the Panama Canal which 
seldom suggests itself to the merely casual mind is 
the one involved in keeping it clear of the infectious 
and epidemic diseases for which Asiatic and tropical 
ports have a sinister reputation. The opening of 
the Suez Canal was followed by new danger from 
plague, cholera and yellow fever in Mediterranean 
countries. A like situation may arise at Panama. 




Photo by Broun Bros. 



As is fitting. 



It is proposed, though I think not yet officially, to 
have passing vessels from infected ports inspected at 
the entrance to the Canal. If infection exists the 
ship can be fumigated during the passage through 
the Canal, which will take from ten to twelve hours, 
while the subsequent voyage to her home port, 
whether on our Atlantic coast or in Europe, will 
make any subsequent delay in quarantine needless. 
The plague is the disease most dreaded in civilized 

communities, 
which it only 
enters by be- 
ing brought 
by ship from 
some Asiatic 
port in which 
it is prevalent. 
Its germs can 
be carried by 
rats as well as 
by human be- 
ings, and for 
this reason in 
some ports 
vessels from 
suspected 
ports are not 
allowed to 
come up to a 
dock lest the 
rodents slip 
ashore carry- 
ing the pesti- 
lence. Some- 
times in such ports you will see a vessel's hawsers 
obstructed by large metal disks, past which no rat 
may slip if he tries the tight-rope route to the shore. 
The new contracts for wharves, docks and piers at 
all our Zone ports jDrescribe that they shall be rat- 
proof. Indeed the rodents are very much under the 
ban in Panama, and the annual slaughter by the 
Sanitary Department exceeds 12,000. 

Preparations are being made to make Balboa a 
quarantine station of world-wide importance. The 
mere proximity of the date for opening the Canal 
has caused discussion of its effect upon the health of 
civilized nations. At Suez an International Board 
exists for the purpose of so guarding that gateway 



COL. GOETHALS HOUSE AT CULEBRA 
'The Colonel's" house tops the highest hill in Culebra, looking down the cut 



398 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



from the East that none of the pestilences for which nation alone. Despite this cheerful optimism of 
the Orient has an ill-fame can slip through. No Europe, there has not yet been a very prompt acqui- 
suggestion has been made of international control at escence by Congress in the estimates presented by 




ELECTRIC TOWING LOCOMOTIVES ON A LOCK 



Panama. In fact such of the foreign articles as 
have come under my eye have been flattering to us 
as a nation, asserting, as they all do, that in sanitary 
science the United States is so far ahead that the 
quarantine service may be safely entrusted to this 



Col. Gorgas for the permanent housing and mainte- 
nance of the quarantine service. Since the United 
States is to give the Canal to the world, it should so 
equip the gift that it will not be a menace to the 
world's health. 



CHAPTER XX 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS OF THE CANAL 







-^1 



AVING built the Panama Canal 
at a heavy cost of treasure and 
no Hght cost of Hfe, having sub- 
dued to our will the greatest 
forces of nature and put a curb 
upon the malevolent powers of 
tropical miasma and infection, 
we are about to give the com- 
pleted result to the whole world. 
It stands as a free gift, for never 
can any tolls that will be im- 
posed make of it a commercial success. It was the 
failure to recognize this inevitable fact that made it 
impossible for the French to complete the task. It 
will be a national asset, not because of the income 
gathered at its two entrances, but because of the 
cheapening of freight rates between our two coasts 
and the consequent reduction of prices to our citizens. 
But this advantage will 
accrue to peoples who 
have not paid a dollar 
of taxation toward the 
construction of the 
Canal. There is ab- 
solutely no advantage 
which the Canal may 
present to the people 
of New England that 
will not be shared 
equally by the people 
of the Canadian prov- 
inces of Quebec and 
Ontario if they desire 
to avail themselves of 
the opportunity. Our 
gulf ports of MobUe, 
New Orleans and Gal- 
veston expect, and rea- 
sonably so, that the 
volume of their traffic 
will be greatly in- 



creased by the opening of the Canal. But if Rio 
de Janeiro, Buenos Ayres and Montevideo have 
products they desire to ship to the Orient or to the 
western coast of their own continent of South Amer- 
ica the Canal is open to them as freely as to our 
ships. 

Having given to the world so great a benefaction, 
it will be the part of the international statesmen of 
the United States, the diplomatists, to see to it that 
the gift is not distorted, nor, through any act of 
ours, divided unequally among those sharing in it. 
Upon the diplomacy of the. United States the opening 
of the Canal will impose many new burdens and re- 
sponsibilities. 

Scarcely any general European war involved more 
intricate and delicate questions of the reciprocal 
rights of nations than did the acquisition of the 
Suez Canal by Great Britain. Volumes have been 




A CHURCH IN CHORRERA 



399 



400 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




A NATIVE KITCHEN . 

written on the subject of the diplomacy of Suez. 
The Constantinople conference called for the dis- 
cussion of that topic, and the specific delimitation 
of the authority of Great Britain and the rights of 
other maritime nations was one of the most notable 
gatherings in the history of diplomacy. The Pan- 
ama waterway will bring new problems and intensify 
old ones for the consideration of our statesmen. 
The Monroe 
Doctrine is 
likely to come 
in for a very . 
thorough test- 
ing and ^per- 
haps a new for- 
mulation. The 
precise scope of 
that doctrine 
has of late years 
become some- 
what ill defined. 
Foreign na- 
tions say that 
the tendency of 
the United 
States is to ex- 
tend its powers 
and ignore its 
responsibilities 
under this the- 
ory. In Latin 



America, where that doctrine 
should be hailed as a bulwark 
of protection, it is looked upon 
askance. That feeling is largely 
due to the attitude of this country 
toward the Republic of Colombia 
at the time of the secession of 
Panama. 

A problem of the highest im- 
portance to the credit of the 
United States in Latin America, 
which should be settled in accord- 
ance with principles of national 
honor and international equity, is 
the determination of what repara- ' 
tion we owe the Republic of 
Colombia for our part in the 
revolution which made Panama an independent 
state and gave us the Canal Zone. 

In an earlier chapter I have tried to tell, without 
bias, the story of that revolution and to leave to 
the readers' own judgment the question whether 
our part in it was that merely of an innocent by- 
stander, a neutral looker-on, or whether we did not, 
by methods of indirection at least, make it impossible 




NATIVE HOUSE IN PENOMENE 



OUR RECKONING WITH COLOMBIA 



401 



for Colombia to employ her own 
troops for the suppression of rebellion 
in her own territory. As President, 
and later as private citizen, Mr. 
Roosevelt was always exceedingly in- 
sistent that he had adhered to the 
strictest letter of the neutrality law — 
always that is except in that one im- 
petuous speech in San Francisco, in 
which he blurted out the boast, "I 
took Panama and left Congress to 
debate about it afterward". 

Mr. Roosevelt's protestations of in- 
nocence had, however, little effect up- 
on his own friends and party asso- 
ciates, for early in the Taft adminis- 
tration the conviction became general among men in 
high station that reparation of some sort was due to 
Colombia for what was — to express it guardedly — 
our connivance at a conspiracy that cost that repub- 
lic its richest province — cost it further a lump 
payment of $10,000,000 and an annual sum of 
$250,000 to eternity. The records of diplomacy are 
enmeshed in many concealing veils, but enough is 
known of the progress of the negotiations to reflect 





GIANT CACTI OFTEN USED FOR HEDGING 
Planted close together, these cacti form a barrier impassible by animals 



A STREET IN CHORRERA 

credit upon the diplomacy of Colombia. That 
country has neither threatened nor blustered — and 
the undeniable fact that the comparative power of 
Colombia and the United States would make threats 
and bluster ridiculous would not ordinarily deter a 
Latin-American President from shrieking shrill de- 
fiance at least for the benefit of his compatriots. 
Colombia has been persistent but not petulant. 
It has stated its case to two administrations and has 
wrung from both the confession 
that the United States in that 
revolution acted the part of an 
international bandit. Out of the 
recesses of the Department of 
State has leaked the information 
that the United States has made 
to Colombia a tentative offer of 
$10,000,000, but that it had been 
refused. But the offer itself was 
a complete confession on the part 
of the United States of its guilt in 
the transaction complained of. 
Naturally, Colombia declined the 
proffered conscience money. Pan- 
ama received from the United 
States not merely $10,000,000, 
but will get $250,000 a year for an 
indefinite period. All this Co- 
lombia lost and her valuable 
province as well because the cap- 
tain of a United States man-of- 
war would not let the Colombian 



402 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



colonels on that day of revolution use force to compel 
a railroad manager to carry their troops across the 
Isthmus. The grievance of the Colombians is a 
very real and seemingly just one. 

We hear much of the national honor in reference 
to canal tolls but less of it in relation to this contro- 
versy with Colombia. Yet that controversy ought 
to be settled and settled justly. It is inconceivable, 
of course, that it should be determined by restoring 
the status as it existed before that day of opera- 



President Roosevelt wrote the word Panama on 
the list of nations and moved on vastly pleased with 
the record. 

The situation at the same time is one not to be 
lightly dealt with. The United States is none too 
popular at any point south of its own borders. It is 
at the one time hated and feared. The very Pana- 
manians whom we invested with independence have 
no liking for us and the hatred of the Colombians 
for the nation that despoiled them is so general and 




Photo by Brown Bros. 



THE TOWN OF EMPIRE, SOON TO BE ABANDONED 



bouffe revolution. Our investment in the Canal 
Zone, our duty to the world which awaits the open- 
ing of the Canal, and our loyalty to our partner, 
Panama,, alike make that impossible. The Republic 
of Panama is an accomplished fact not to be obliter- 
ated even in the interest of precise justice. As the 
Persian poet put it: 

"The moving finger writes, and having writ 
Moves on; nor all your piety nor wit, 

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line. 

Nor all your tears wash out one word of it". 



extreme that their rulers are entitled to the utmost 
credit for having observed all the courtesies of 
diplomacy in their efforts to secure some measure of 
reparation. The question presents itself, is it wise 
to leave such a hot-bed of hatred, of resentment 
perhaps justifiable, in the very midst of Latin 
America, just when we are hoping by our new Canal 
to extend and cement our commercial relations with 
them? Among the Latin Americans there is a very 
general feeling that our devotion to the Monroe 
Doctrine is indicative only of our purpose to protect 



OUR COMMERCIAL INTERESTS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



403 



our neighbors against any selfish aggressions except 
our own. It is of the very highest importance that 
this feeling be dissipated, and there is perhaps no 
more immediate way of beginning that task than by 
reaching such an agreement with Colombia as shall 
indicate to other South American governments our 
purpose of doing exact justice among our neighbors, 
be they great and powerful or small and weak. 

With all the South American countries the com- 
merce of the Canal will tend to bring us into closer 



besides maintaining two nitrate plants in Chile does 
a prodigious business in explosives with the various 
states — and not mainly for military purposes only. 
The United States Steel Company has a vanadium 
mine in Peru where 3000 Americans are working. 
The equipment of street railways and electric- 
Hghting plants in South American cities is almost 
wholly of American manufacture. Even without 
the systematic encouragement of their home govern- 
ment, American business men have begun to make 




PANAMA RAILROAD BRIDGE ACROSS THE CHAGREb 



relations and to multiply the possibility of inter- 
national dissension. Moreover, the growing interests 
of United States business men in those countries 
form national outposts on which we must ever keep 
a friendly eye. It is ridiculous to urge upon indi- 
viduals the task of stimulating and extending our 
foreign trade if the government is to be wholly 
indifferent to their efforts. It is known that the 
great beef packers of Chicago have considerable 
plants in the Argentine; that a famous iron manu- 
facturer of Pittsburgh has in Chile what is believed 
to be the largest iron mine in the world; that the 
Standard Oil Company has its agencies throughout 
the continent; and the Du Pont Powder Company 



inroads upon German and English commercial power 
in South America, and the opening of the Canal will 
increase their activities. Today our Pacific coast 
is practically shut off from any interchange of com- 
modities with Brazil and the Argentine; with the 
Canal open a direct waterway will undoubtedly 
stimulate a considerable trade. The more trade is 
stimulated, the more general travel becomes between 
■^nations, the less becomes the danger of war. 
There is no inconsistency in the statement that the 
Canal wiU become a powerful factor in the world's 
peace, even though it does necessitate the main- 
tenance of a bigger navy and the erection of powerful 
forts for its defense in the improbable event of war. 



404 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




A STREET IN CHORRERA 

This is but one phase of the influence the Canal 
will exercise upon countries other than the United 
States. What it will do for the Latin-American 
countries immediately adjacent to Panama in the 
direction of leading them to establish improved 
sanitation systems, or to perfect those they now 
maintain, is beyond present estimate. Many such 
governments have had their representatives on the 
Zone to study the methods there in force, and while 
the present writer was there Col. Gorgas was be- 
sought to visit Guayaquil to give its rulers expert 
advice on the correction of the unsanitary state of 
that city. Members of the staff of Col. Gorgas are 
in demand as experts in all parts of the world. I 
know of one who in the last daj^s of the Canal con- 
struction was sent by the German government to 
establish in some of the 
German South African 
provinces the methods 
that brought health to the 
Isthmus after the days of 
the futile French struggle 
with fever and malaria. 

It is because of this 
influence upon foreign peo- 
ples, already apparent, 
that far-sighted people 
find intolerable the propo- 
sition to let the Canal 
Zone grow up into jungle 
and return to its original 



state of savagery. It can and should 
be made an object lesson to the world. 
From every ship that makes the ten- 
hour passage of the Canal some pas- 
sengers will go ashore for rest from 
the long voyage and to see what the 
Zone may have to show them. Are 
we content to have them see only the 
hovels of Colon and the languid 
streets of Panama — exhibits that give 
no idea of the force, the imagination, 
the idealism that gave being to the 
Canal? Today the Zone is a little 
bit of typical United States life set 
down in the tropics. So it might re- 
main if due encouragement were 
given to industrious settlers. There 
is not so much land in the world that this need be 
wasted, nor have there been so many examples of the 
successful creation and continuance of such a com- 
munity as the Zone has been as to justify its oblitera- 
tion before the world has grasped its greatest 
significance. 

There are not lacking those philosophers who hold 
that the first political effect of the Canal will be to 
force us to abandon that attitude of national isolation 
and aloofness prescribed in Washington's depreca- 
tion of "entangling alliances abroad". They hold 
that this latest and greatest addition to our reasons 
for solicitude about the control of the Pacific will 
compel us to seek the cooperation of 
other powers — or another power 
— to make that control 




A PEARL ISLAND VILLAGE 



MUTUAL INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN 



405 



Hlgbest point of oxcarBllon 
on Gold Hill 



"■^^lSin_al___^'jl20¥t. 




|]480Fl, 



iUooFi- 

s\ 



■5 



Area excavated | by| the French 






■ieOFt. "-t-- ~ 

'120Ft. I 

excavated by the United Stat' 

E|g..->;5 ' ; SuTfart of Walirr 



<0 Fl. ' 
Looking toward Panama 





complete. Perhaps the prop- 
osition is most frankly stated 
in this paragraph from Mr. 
Frank Fox's "Problems of 
the Pacific". 

"The friendly cooperation 
between the United States 
and Great Britain would give 
to the Anglo-Saxon race the 
mastery of the world's great- 
est ocean, laying forever the 
fear of the Yellow Peril, se- 
curing for the world that its 
greatest readjustment of the 
balance of power shall be 
effected in peace, while 
rivalry between these two 
Idndred nations may cause 
the gravest evils and possibly irreparable disasters", the Canal will be in British ships. For New Zea- 

This is no place to discuss this thesis, but even land and all of the eastern part of British Australia 



Ft.400 360 320 280 240 200 160 120 80 40 



40 80 120 160 200 240 280 320 360 400 4(3 480 520 tOOFl 



DIAGRAM OF COMPARATIVE EXCAVATIONS BY THE FRENCH AND AMERICANS 

IN CULEBRA CUT 



the most casual consideration shows how great a 
mutual interest the United States and Great Britain 
have in the Panama Canal and its safeguarding 
from any disturbing conditions in the Pacific. 
Until conditions change and the United States 
regains its place among the maritime nations of 
the world the bulk of the trade passing through 



the Panama route offers the most expeditious con- 
nection with Liverpool. Canada, too, is vitally 
interested in the Canal. By the employment of 
the system of Georgian Bay and St. Lawrence 
Canals, which the Dominion government has created, 
with a foresight far greater than our own, the wheat, 
even of the Winnipeg region, may be sent b}^ water 




Plwco by W. R. Bunts 



VIEW OF PEDRO MIGUEL LOCKS NEARING COMPLETION 



4o6 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 





NATIVE WOMAN, COCLE 

to Montreal and thence in sea-going ships to the 
further shore of 
the Pacific. Even 
though owned by 
the United States, 
the Canal will be 
a powerful tie to 
bind closer to- 
gether the widely 
separated parts 
of the British 
Empire. 

That being true 
it will further ce- 
ment the spirit of 
friendliness be- 
tween the United 

States and Great Britain. It will accomplish 
this without formal treaties or proclaimed alliance. 
The alliance will be tacit, resulting from the very 
logic of the situation. Great Britain cannot afford to 
be otherwise than friendly with the owner of the 
Canal—the little passing tiff over the question of 
tolls on coastwise shipping notwithstanding. It is 
idle to ask that the control of the Pacific be assured 
by an Anglo-American compact. More intelligent is 
it to assume that any effort to break down that con- 
trol, which now virtually exists, would be met by ac- 
tion on the part of the two English-speaking nations 
quite as effective as though a treaty existed. This, 
too, despite the present Anglo-Japanese treaty which 
so disquiets our California citizens, but quite 
needlessly, in fact, because of that convention for it 



promises no support to Japan in the event of the 
latter being the aggressor. 

Any formal convention, however, any international 
agreement for the control of the Pacific which should 
leave Germany out, would be an incentive to trouble 
rather than a bright harbinger of peace. For no 
nation is making more active and intelligent prepara- 
tions to reap to the fullest the advantages of the 
Canal than are the Germans. Their nation's great 
interests in Brazil, Argentine, and Chile, her colo- 
nizing activities in Asia, her Chinese port of Kiau- 
Chou, forcibly wrested from China, all impel her 
to take a lively interest in the Canal and the Pacific. 
The Kaiser would not look with any placid indiffer- 
ence upon such an Anglo-American agreement as 
has been urged, and as its ends can be, and probably 

will be attained 
without formal 
pronouncement, 
any open diplo- 
matic negotia- 
tions for such a 
convention would 
probably be un- 
wise. Enough to 
say that while 
speculation con- 
cerning such an 
agreement is quite 
general among 
-^ publicists today, 

RIVER VILLAGE IN CHIRIQUI ^^ disCUSSioU of 

it has yet engaged the attention of any statesmen. 




THE PEARL ISLAND VILLAGE OF SABOGA 



WHAT THE CANAL HAS, AND WILL, COST 



407 



After considering the problem of what the Canal 
will be worth, let us reverse the ordinary process and 
figure out what it will cost. Exact statement is 
still impossible, for as this book is being printed the 
Canal is months away from being usable and probably 
two years short of completion if we reckon terminals 
and fortifications as part of the completed work. 

In an earlier chapter I have set forth some of the 
estimates of its cost from the figure of $131,000,000 
set by the volatile De Lesseps to the $375,000,000 of 
the better informed and more judicious Goethals. 
In June, 1913, however, we had at hand the official 
report of all expenditures to March, 1913, duly 
classified as follows: 



It is worth noting that all this colossal expenditure 
of money has been made without any evidence of 
graft, and practically without charge of that all- 
pervading canker in American public work. During 
a long stay on the Isthmus, associating constantly 
with men in every grade of the Commission's service, 
I never heard a definite charge of illegal profits being 
taken by anyone concerned in the work. In certain 
publications dealing with the undertaking in its 
earlier days one will find assertions of underhanded 
collusion with contractors and of official raids upon 
the more select importations of the Commissary 
without due payment therefore. But even these 
charges were vague, resting only on hearsay, and 



CLASSIFIED EXPENDITURES— ISTHMIAN CANAL COMMISSION 



A statement of classified expenditures of the Isthmian Canal Commission to March 31, 1913, follow.s: 



Periods 


Department 

of Civil 

.Administration 


Depart- 
ment of 
Law 


Department 

of 
Sanitation 


Department of 

Construction 

and Engineering 


General Items 


Fortifications 


Total 


Total to June 30, 1909. . 


$3,427,090.29 

709,351.37 

755,079.44 

820,398.57 

63,913.12 

62,182.51 

.59,201.01 

64,383.37 

62,200.12 

58,987.96 

57,699.58 

56,586.06 

58,761.03 




$9,673,539.28 

1,803,040.95 

1,717,792.62 

1,620,391.12 

123,803.64 

123,154.48 

120,385.70 

137,574.61 

119,031.66 

115,819.26 

114,562.04 

127,324.80 

105,891.08 


$69,622,561.42 

26,300,167.05 

27,477,776.19 

28,897,738.10 

2,649,246.61 

2,539,680.83 

2,285,979.89 

2,473,280.76 

2,420,085.77 

2,871,977.03 

2,825,872.06 

3,784,.370.51 

2,712,218.10 


$78,022,606.10 

2,863,088.83 

3,097,959.72 

2,819,926.53 

200,970.55 

*98,054.61 

77,003..53 

83,523.30 

75,779.01 

120,946.61 

6,463.72 

123,034.12 

7,706.70 




$160,745,797.09 

31,675,648.20 

33,048,607.97 

35,396,065.14 

3,143,509.37 

2,739,834.02 

2,670,946.20 

2,890,532.16 

2,979,005.03 

3,287,345.61 

3,125,3.39.76 


Total — Fiscal Year, 1910. . . 






Total — Fiscal Year, 1911 






Total— Fiscal Year, 1912. . . 
July 1912 


24,729.16 
1,448.53 
1,468.26 
1,207.82 
2,033.75 
1,892.14 
1,462.18 
1,469.59 
1,649.00 
1,899.22 


1,212,881.66 
104,126.92 
111,402.55 
127,168.25 
129,736..37 
300,016.33 
118,1.52.-57 
119,272.77 
314,994.96 
131,940.75 


August, 1912 

September, 1912 

October, 1912 

November, 1912 

December, 1912 

January, 1913 


February, 1913 


4,407,9,59.45 


March, 1913 


3,003,003.48 




Crrancl toti,! 


$6 255 834 43 


$39,259.65 


$15,902,311.24 


$176,860,954.32 


$87,385,540.71 


$2,669,693.13 


.$289,113,,593.48 







*Denotes credit. 

It will be observed that since the beginning of 
the fiscal year 1913, expenditures have averaged a 
trifle over $3,000,000 a month. This rate of expendi- 
ture may be expected to decrease somewhat during 
the eighteen months likely to elapse before the 
Canal, terminals and forts are completed. Probably 
if we allow $250,000 a month for this decrease we 
will be near the mark making the future expenditures 
average $2,750,000 monthly until January, 191 5, 
making in all $57,750,000. Adding this to the 
•Commission expenditures up to March 31, 191 3, 
.and adding further the $50,000,000 paid to the 
French stockholders and the Republic of Panama we 
Teach the sum of $396,863,593 — a reasonable esti- 
mate of the final cost of the great world enterprise; 
the measure in dollars and cents of the greatest gift 
ever made by a single nation to the world. 



had to do with an administration which vanished 
six or more years ago. Today that chronic libeler 
"the man in the street" has nothing to say about 
graft in connection with Canal contracts, and 
"common notoriety", which usually upholds all 
sorts of scandalous imputations, and is cited to 
maintain various vague allegations, is decidedly on 
the side of official integrity at Panama. 

This is not to say that the work has been conducted 
with an eye single to economy. It has not. That 
is to say it has not been conducted in accordance 
with the common idea of economy. All over the 
land contractors, apprehensive of the effect of the 
Panama example of government efficiency in public 
work, are telling how much more cheaplj' they could 
have dug the Panama Canal. Probably they could 
if they could have dug it at all. But the sort of 



4o8 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Copyrigtit by Undeniood d Vndtru-ood 

THE TUG BOHIO WITH BARGES IN MIDDLE GATUN LOCK 



economy they are talking about was definitely 
abandoned when Col. Gorgas convinced the Com- 
mission that it was reckless extravagance to save 
$50,000 or so on wire screens and lose forty or fifty 
lives in a yellow-fever epidemic. The contractor's 
idea of economy was emphatically set aside when 
Col. Goethals determined that it was cheaper to 
pay engineers one-third more than the current rate 
at home, and make such arrangements for their 
comfort on the Zone that they wotild stay on the 
job, rather than to pay ordinary prices and have 
them leave in haste after a month or two of dis- 
satisfied and half- 
hearted work. 

From which it ap- 
pears that a new defi- 
nition of "economy" 
is needed in the appli- 
cation of the word to 
the Canal work. 

Whatever may be 
the influence of the 
Canal on the position 
of the United States 
as a world power, its 
influence on the in- 
dustrial life at home is 
likely to be all perva- 
sive and revolutionary. 
The government is the 



largest employer of labor 
in the land. It ought to 
be the best employer. On 
the Zone it has been the 
best employer, and has 
secured the best results. 
When government work is 
to be done hereafter it 
\\'ill not be let out to 
private contractors with- 
out hesitation and discus- 
sion. A consideration of 
the results obtained by 
the State of New York in 
its latest expenditiu-e, by 
the methods of private 
contract, of the Erie Canal 
appropriation of $101,- 
000,000, will go far to show the superiority of the 
Panama system. In a recent interview the Secretary 
of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, declared it to 
be the policy of the Department to build battle- 
ships in navy yards so far as possible — a policy 
which the shipbuilding interests have steadily 
resisted in the past. It is not too much to infer 
that the success of the army in digging a canal 
encouraged the Secretary to show what the navy 
could do in building its own ships. 

If the system and conditions of employment that 
have existed in Panama could be applied to public 




Coei/right by VndcrwootI .V- r ni!< nni^id. 

LOOKING DOWN CANAL FROM MIRAFLORES LOCK TO THE PACIFIC 



NEW WORK FOR THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION 



409 



service in all other parts of the United States, the 
condition of all labor, all industry, all professional 
service would be correspondingly improved. For 
with the most extensive employer setting the pace 
all others would have to keep step with it. 

When the long account comes to be balanced we 
may find that the United States will owe quite as 
much to the Panama enterprise on the moral as on 
the material side. Of course it is going to increase 
our trade both foreign and domestic — that, as the 



cities along the Atlantic coast. At the same time 
the output of our eastern steel mills and New Eng- 
land cotton and woolen factories will find a more 
expeditious and cheaper route to the builders and 
workers of the Pacific coast. 

Incidentally the labors of the Interstate Commerce 
Commission are likely to be multiplied almost in- 
calculably. For it must be accepted as a fact that 
free competition is no longer a complete regulator 
of freight rates whether by rail or by water. Any 



















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Covvright by Underwood & Underwood. 



CULEBRA CUT PARTIALLY FILLED WITH WATER 



French say, goes without saying. It will cheapen 
the cost of building cottages in New York suburbs, 
because lumber will be brought from the forests of 
Oregon and Washington for half the freight cost now 
exacted. It will stimulate every mantifacturing 
interest on the Pacific coast for coal from West 
Virginia will be laid down there at dollars per ton 
less than now. The men who catch and can salmon 
in the rushing waters of the Columbia, the men who 
raise and pack the luscious oranges of southern 
California will have a new and cheaper way of carry- 
ing their products to the eager markets of the great 



one can charter 'a ship and send it through the Canal 
with the same rights and privileges that a long estab- 
lished line will enjoy. But not every independent 
ship can find dockage facilities at both ends of its 
voyage, although it is true that the enterprising 
cities of the Pacific coast are warding off monopoly 
by building municipal docks. Moreover, the owner 
of the independent ship will have his troubles in 
getting the railroads at either end to handle his 
cargoes and distribute them at such charges as will 
leave him any profit. Indeed the independent ship 
will be but little of a factor in fluxing rates. That 



410 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



will be done by the regular lines. Normally there 
should be keen competition between the railroads 
and the steamships with a very marked drop in 
rates. But it will not be well to base too great hopes 
on this possibility. Transportation rates, even 
where there is nominally free competition, are not 
often based wholly on the cost of the service. 
What the traffic will bear is more often the chief 
factor in rate making. Because ships can carry 
freight from New York to San Francisco for three 



less vigilance and probably necessitate a material 
extension of its authority. 

In other than material ways the nation will largely 
profit. I think that the fact of the Canal's having 
been built by army engineers will go far toward cor- 
recting a certain hostility toward the army which is 
common in American thought. The Canal proves 
that the organization of the army, the education of 
its ofificers, is worth something in peace as well as 
in war. Of course this has been shown before in 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 



FLOATING ISLANDS IN GATUN LOCK ENTRANCE 



These islands, formed of aquatic plants with entwined roots and a Httle soil, must be towed away by tugs and sent over the 

spillway lest they block navigation. 



dollars a traffic-ton less than the railroads does not 
imply that they will do so. Nor does it ensure that 
railroad rates will drop spasmodically in a vain 
effort to keep all the business away from the ships. 
Rather is it probable that certain classes of freight 
like lumber, coal and ore will be left wholly to the 
ships, and some form of agreement as to the essen- 
tials of the general rate card will be arrived at. It 
is this agreement, which in some form or other is 
sure to come, that will engage the attention of the 
Interstate Commerce Commission, arouse its cease- 



countless public works scattered over the land, but 
never hitherto in a fashion to command such atten- 
tion and to compel such plaudits. There were five 
Colonels, besides "The Colonel," on the Commission 
which put the big job through, and I do not believe 
that the most shrinking civilian who visited the 
Isthmus on either business or pleasure found any 
ground to complain of militarism, or was overawed 
by any display of "fuss and feathers." 

The Canal Zone was, of course, a rural community 
harboring about 65,000 people scattered along a 



THE MORAL LESSON OF THE PANAMA CANAL 



411 



railroad 47 miles long. Yet in 
the story of its government there 
is much that is instructive to the 
rulers of our American cities. 
Every head of the Department 
of Sanitation in an American 
city would profit by a study of 
Col. Gorgas's methods in dealing 
with the problems of dirt, sew- 
age, and infection. Indeed many 
of the ideas he developed are al- 
ready being adapted to the needs 
of North American municipali- 
ties. It is becoming quite evi- 
dent that the scientific method 
of controlling insect pests by 
destroying their breeding places 
is the only efficient one. The 
larvacide man in the waste 
places, or the covered garbage 
can, and screened stable are not 
as melodramatic as newspaper 
shrieks of "Swat the Fly", but 
they accomplish more in the 
end. 

The management of the Pan- 
ama Railroad by and for the 
government affords an object 
lesson that will be cited when we 
come to open Alaska. Though 
over-capitalized in the time of 
its private ownership and opera- 
tion the railroad under the 
direction of Col. Goethals has 
paid a substantial profit. 
Though rushed with the work 
incident to the Canal construc- 
tion it has successfully dealt 




C(Jiiyn(int bi/ Underwood & Underwood. 

THE FIRST BOAT THROUGH. 



The commission tug Gatun, with members -of the commission aboard, is approaching the 

lower Gatun lock from the Atlantic end of the Canal. The two pairs of 

gates are opening for her admission. 



with its commercial business, and has offered in 
many ways a true example of successful railway 
management. 

But to my mind more important than any other 
outcome of the Canal work, is its complete demon- 
stration of the ability of the United States to do its 
own work for its own people, efficiently, successfully 
and honestly. That is an exhibit that wUl not 
down. The expenditure of ftdly $375,000,000 with no 
perceptible taint of graft is a victory in itself. There 



are exceedingly few of our great railroad corporations 
that can show as clean a record, and the fact some- 
what depreciates the hostility of some of their heads 
to the extension into their domain of the activities 
of the government. In urging this point no one can 
be blind to the fact that the Zone was governed and 
the Canal work directed by an autocrat. But the 
autocrat was directly subject to Congress and had 
to come to that body annually for his supphes of 
money. It was dug by the army, but no one now 



41- 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



doubts that the navy could have done as well, and 
few will question that, with the Panama experience 
as a guide, a mixed commission of civilians and 
military and naval officers could efficiently direct 
any public work the nation might undertake. 



wholly by the United States, it is to exist for the 
general good of all mankind, it should be, in the 
ages to come, the greatest glory attached to the 
American flag. In abolishing human slavery we 
only followed last in the train of all civilized nations. 




THE FLAG IN TWO OCEANS. 

The Oregon steamed 10,000 miles in 1898 to carry the flag from the Pacific to the theater of war in the Atlantic. Ten hours of steaming 
through 50 miles of canal will henceforth make our fleet available in either ocean. 



So with the Panama Canal approaching completion 
we can see that its effects are to be manifold — 
domestic as well as foreign, moral as well as material, 
political as well as economic. If it be properly con- 
ducted in its completed state, managed and directed 
upon the broad principle that, though paid for 



But in tearing away the most difficult barrier that 
nature has placed in the way of world-wide trade, 
acquaintance, friendship and peace, we have done 
a service to the cause of universal progress and 
civilization the worth of which the passage of time 
will never dim. 



EARLY in the afternoon of October 10, 191 3, 
President Wilson, standing in the executive 
offices of the White House, pressed a teleg- 
rapher's key. Straightway a spark sped along the 
wires to Galveston, Tex., thence by cable to the 
Canal Zone and, in an instant, with a roar and a 
quaking of the earth a section of the Gamboa Dyke, 



which from the beginning has barred the waters of 
Gatun Lake from the Cidebra Cut, was blown away. 
The water gushed through, though not in such a 
torrent as sightseers had hoped for, since pumps, 
started on Oct. ist, had already filled the cut to 
within six feet of the level of the lake. But 
presently thereafter a native cayuca, and then a 



GAMBOA DYKE BLOV/N UP 



413 



few light power boats sped through the narrow 
opening, and there remained no obstacle to the 
passage of the canal by such light craft from ocean 
to ocean. 

By the destruction of the Gamboa Dyke on the 
date fixed Colonel Goethals carried out a promise 
he had made long before to himself and to the 
people. It was on the loth of October, 1513, that 



October. On the 26th of September the first vessel 
was raised from the Atlantic level through the 
three steps of the Gatun locks to Gatun Lake. 
There was no particular pomp or ceremony ob- 
served. The craft was merely an humble tug em- 
ployed regularly in canal work. Indeed it is said 
that it was not at "the colonel's" initiative that 
the ceremony of having Gamboa Dj^ke blown up 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood. 

THE continent's BACKBONE BROKEN 
The blast that destroyed Gamboa Dyke completed water connection between the Atlantic and Pacific. 



Balboa strode thigh-deep into the Pacific Ocean, 
and, raising on high the standard of Spain, claimed 
that sea and all countries abutting upon it for his 
sovereign. The United States just four centuries 
later celebrated one of the final steps in opening 
to the commerce of all the world the water-way 
between the oceans. 

The demolition of Gamboa Dyke was the cul- 
mination of a series of steps forward toward the 
completion of the canal during the first week in 



by wire from the White House was observed. That 
quiet but efficient army engineer signalized his 
service on the canal rather by doing things than 
by celebrating them when done. 

From the Pacific end the first lockage was ef- 
fected on October 14, when the tug Miraflores with 
two barges was put through the Miraflores locks, 
and floated on Lake Miraflores. The locks at 
Pedro Miguel were in condition to elevate the boats 
to the level of Culebra Cut, but there was not at 



414 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




Copyright 6y Underwood & Underwood. 

THE FIRST BOAT THROUGH. 



II. 



The Gatun is in the lock, but the gates are not yet closed. They can be seen folded 

flush with the wall. When closed water will be admitted from the sides and 

bottom of the lock, raising the boat 28 }4 feet to the next lock. 

the moment enough water in the cut to receive 
and float them. 

Not long before the first lockages to the level 
of Gatun Lake there occurred very great activity 



of the Cucaracha slide, filling the 
canal bed from side to side. As a 
result no actual passage of the 
entire canal was then possible for 
boats of commercial size. The 
material thus blocking the cut is 
mainly soft earth, and suction 
dredges were speedily installed 
by which it was pumped out 
and deposited behind the hills 
bordering the canal and nearly 
two miles away. 

When the Gamboa Dyke was 
blown away the villages on the 
south side of the canal became 
wholly inaccessible. Culebra, 
Matachin, Empire, Gorgona, — 
all stirring towns during the busy 
days of canal construction, — could 
no longer be reached by rail- 
road, and their abandonment, 
determined upon long before, be- 
came final. The houses which 
had been the admiration of all 
visitors to the Zone were taken 
down in sections and removed' 
to sites of the new towns which 
the commission intends shall be 
permanent. Culebra lasted long- 
est, as it could still be reached 
by shuttle trains crossing the 
canal on a precarious bridge near 
the Pedro Miguel locks; but it in 
the end vanished with the rest. 

There remain no epoch-making 
events to be celebrated in the 
progress of the canal to comple- 
tion. As the dredges make 
further inroads upon the Cuca- 
racha slide, larger and larger 
vessels will pass through, without 
ceremony, until the canal is open to all. The 
final celebration, January i, 1915, will not precede 
but follow long after the actual employment of the 
canal by the commerce of all nations. 



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